The Best Frauds, Scams, and Big Company Cons in America Today

How to Submit a Fraud Issue to Us

Consumers! This is the place to learn how to submit a Fraud or Scam issue to us. Please read this entire page carefully before you jump into a letter. We want to hear about every fraud issue that's affected you and others. However, the issue must be widely applicable to most consumers; and, the incidents and facts must be verifiable by us, before we print them. If you think your issue fits -- go for it -- read on.

SUMMARY:         Best Frauds prints only the BEST FRAUDS in North America today. By "Best", we mean: The issue of the fraud or scam must be broadly applicable to most consumers today; An important principle about dealing with consumers must be involved in the scam; There should be some indication of trickery or craftiness by the merchant or provider; It must be interesting and of broad enough appeal that most consumers can relate to it; The facts or incidents must be recent, topical, and verifiable, and the fraud well defined. Reading the articles on this site will give you an idea of what we mean by these important points. Let's take a few examples. First, the Sears Fraud: Whether people buy from Sears is not so much the issue here, as is the principle of a merchant charging items to your credit card and not even bothering to verify that the items were sent. It's a blatant violation of Visa-MasterCard merchant regulations, not to mention many CPA statutes. Second, The AT&T Fraud: Important because it's AT&T? No! The real theme behind this fraud is an attitude that is growing alarmingly through the country, as big companies are able to deal more "remotely" with people -- hence they become flagrantly irresponsible about giving personal customer support. The number of companies now signing you up for something, getting you on an unbreakable billing chain, and never delivering on their promises, is spiraling almost out of control. They use the Internet not as a resource for customers, but as an excuse not to have to deal with you. After you get involved with them, they provide NO WAY for you to communicate with them, person to person. All you get to do is fill out forms and punch buttons on a phone to PAY them the amounts they are fraudulently demanding from you. It's not business -- it is theft!!! Third, The Cellular Scandal: Here the issue is not the companies so much as the deception of glowing hype that make things appear "great", "free", always available "anytime" and "anywhere" -- which you later on find have all kinds of caveats and restrictions that almost totally invalidate the glowing claims. This type of fraud and deception is extremely widespread throughout all market segments, but especially on the Internet, where you can't talk to someone one-on-one to check things out. Finally, The Air Fares Scandal: There are many companies on the Internet and elsewhere making claims about what they can do, and you find that their service is fraudulently represented and/or unusable only after you have made the purchase. That is the key issue here, not the company, or the product so much. The Issue: So you see, the primary ingredient in a "best fraud" is that there is some important issue involved, that may go way beyond the company or series of events you experienced. We want to present a full spectrum of issues crucial to consumers on this site, more than repeating the same issues over and over again. If you have a hot new issue of broad applicability, it's almost certain to get in. So before submitting your situation to us, ask yourself this: "Is there a key issue behind my dilemma". If so, focus on that issue as you present it to us, then give us the details. Principles: As intelligent consumers, we all live by important principles that are the foundation for much of our dealings with other people and companies. After all, without principles, we can just rape, rob and steal everything from everyone, right? So if an important principle of fair ethics, or fair dealing with people, has been violated by a company, we want to hear about it. Principles are sometimes hard to pin down. For example, when a company gets so good at craftily wording their sales pitch, they can fool almost anyone. Exceptionally good advertising can be so smooth and slick that they create the appearance of something they are not really saying. If you go back and read the fine print 10 times, you realize that your initial impression of what they were offering was wrong. Now here is the principle: It doesn't matter if you later on realized your mistake. Often the fact that you were easily deceived by a slick smooth presentation, means that almost everyone else will be too. So a principle of fair and honest presentation of the features of the sale has been violated -- people are clearly deceived. Ask yourself if any principles of fair play, fair presentation, and fair treatment have been violated. If they have, and others can be equally conned, then we sure as anything want to hear about it! Foxes and Wolves: Sometimes it's not any one thing you can put your finger on, but the entire package of stuff and things that happen to you, that really ticks you off.  That was the case with everyone we heard from who dealt with Best Fares -- they all had a feeling of slimy trickery and annoyance at multiple billing. Therefore, it is sometimes everything added together, not just any one thing, that gives you the distinct impression of craftiness and trickery on the part of the merchant or provider. If this is the case, and the issue is of broad applicability to many people, you can be sure it's one we want to hear about. Interesting and Appealing: Let's face it, unusual, off-the-wall, or esoteric encounters might be interesting to the people they happened to, but others will just say -- "who cares, it will never happen to me." We are not expressing a desire for drama -- we just need to put up big issues that most if not all people can relate to. If they can't, they simply won't read it or benefit from it. They want sensationalism! For example, if you were mistreated because you were blind, invalid, disabled, or had a condition that needed special care, this is NOT the site for those complaints. They fall squarely under the umbrella of human rights, not general consumer fraud. In such cases, there are lots of attorneys on the Internet handling special cases of human rights abuse. They do not fit the theme of "Best Frauds." The same goes if you think you were discriminated against because of skin color, race, beliefs, sex, or the ice cream you ate. If you were singled out in a "discriminatory" way -- it is NOT consumer fraud. Consumer Fraud happens to ALL people alike, regardless of how they are different.

Verifiable: Most important of all, we have to be able to verify your story. This almost certainly means it must be a recent event in the last year. Things change too quickly with borderline or nefarious companies for us to verify much beyond 2-3 months ago. Besides, people aren't very interested in what happened years ago, because it's all different now. Also, companies have the perfect "cop out", by saying they have completely changed their business practices. There's nothing we can do to refute that! Hearsay is unacceptable to put on this site. If someone told you that something happened to them -- forget it. If we print unverifiable hearsay, we could be sued for slander. As it is, everything we present on the site comes from well documented and checked situations that we have personally verified to be true and supported by our own experiences. They are bullet proof cases. Merchants can argue all they want about not agreeing with the way we presented the information or events, but the truth is, they did happen, they are documented, and verifiable in a court of law. That's what we need. Finally, before you write to us, try to clearly define the nature of the fraud, in your own words. Use the topical headings on all of our fraud example pages -- they really help get your facts sorted out clearly. They help you focus on what has been violated, and what general principles are at stake.

That's It! You've got the complete picture now. Ask yourself the questions above, and once you've defined the key issues and principles, with verifiable facts and contacts, you're ready to send us. Your name will not be used, only initials and state, and we will edit for presentability. All you need to do is send the entire issue to us via e-mail, and we will present it on this site, if it fits our criteria, and we can verify the accuracy of the claims. In some cases, we might find out more than you did, and we'll print that too, so other people can learn from the issue. Send all submissions to: inf at our website, bestfrauds.com No Spamming! We've not listed the actual mail address here, because robots automatically scour the net for e-mail addresses that they can add to mass mailing lists. Anyone who repeated spams our mail may be in for trouble. It's a busy pipeline, so needless clogging is viewed very dimly. Our Mission: We take our mission seriously -- objective reporting of issues that damage most consumers. We help all consumers learn of the pitfalls and caveats in doing business in America under an inept government, who cannot and will not fairly enforce its laws. When they do, there will be no need for this site!