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The Regional News Thursday, July 10, 2014
For the Public Safety
Beware common vacation time scams From Palos Park Police Chief Joe Miller As you look forward to a summer getaway, watch out for these common scams: Tricky tickets: Received a letter promising free or steeply discounted airline or cruise tickets? Read the small print, and between the lines, for words such as “eligible” and “guaranteed to win.” These mailers are often sent by vacation clubs as a lure to attend a high-pressure sales presentation where you’re promised huge travel discounts. The hook: You join by paying upfront fees that could approach five figures and hard-to-cancel annual dues. But the deals often aren’t delivered, say officials, resulting in a flood of complaints. Seen a deal for free tickets from “U.S. Airlines”? The name is a play on the legitimate carrier U.S. Airways, and the latest example of this common trick. This time, it’s sent by Access Travel Deals, which has ties to American Travel Deals, an Arizona-based company rated “F” by the Better Business Bureau. Name changes are not uncommon, for both vacation clubs and the airlines they spoof: Past pitches promised tickets from nonexistent “American Airways” and “United Airways”; both real carriers end with “Airlines.” Online ticket scams: Emails offering airline tickets or confirmations usually pose a different risk: A details-promising attached link that releases computer malware. They also spoof airlines, whose real confirmations usually have details in the body text, not an attached link. Also beware of unsolicited phone calls and emails offering vacation freebies — in exchange for personal information or credit card numbers under the guise of a “reservation” or “deposit.” Rental ripoffs. In online classifieds, scammers tout enticing rentals at bargain prices — often stealing photos and descriptions of legitimate listings. The goal is upfront payment, often by wire transfer or prepaid debit card — and sometimes personal information with a bogus lease. These ads show up on Craigslist, travel sites, newspaper websites and phony real estate websites that the crooks themselves create. Before you book, at the minimum do an online search of the address (you may see it “for sale” on legitimate Realtor websites) and cut-and-paste blocks of text from the ad. Also check names, emails and phone numbers of the supposed agent
or landlord on Google or a public directory such as whitepages. com. Sometimes, you’ll find a nonexistent location — or the address of a warehouse or business that doesn’t provide suitable accommodations. You’re safest booking travel arrangements with a credit card; be suspect of vendors who won’t accept it. The grandparents scam. The kids also have vacation, and summer means an uptick in this notorious ruse where scammers pose as loved ones in need of your help — and money — after supposedly being arrested or hurt. Don’t buy it. You’ll get burned … and not in trying to get a tan. Destination deceptions. A phone call to your hotel room from a “clerk” claiming a problem with your credit card after check-in? Check it out by calling the front desk yourself; it could an identity thief using a lobby phone. Also be suspect of under-the-door flyers for food delivery that demand upfront credit card payment when you place your order. Your pizza may never arrive — only unauthorized charges to your plastic. The front desk can recommend reputable local vendors: Pay only in cash after food is delivered.
Readers Write
Tips for a fraud-free vacation
• Notify credit card companies: Before leaving, notify credit card issuers when, where and how long you’ll be traveling. This helps fraud departments stop bogus charges if your plastic is used where you’re not — and reduces risk that your cards will be frozen due to “unusual activity” when you try to use them in a distant location. • Weed out your wallet: It’s wise to weed out your wallet, taking only essential identifiers like your driver’s license and just two credit cards — one to carry, another to be locked in a hotel room safe in case your wallet is pilfered. Don’t carry your Social Security or Medicare card (you’ll get emergency care without the latter if needed). • Protect your credit: If you’re traveling for several months, consider a credit freeze you can unthaw upon your return. No matter how long you vacation, closely examine future credit card bills for fraudulent charges by crooked store clerks and waiters who handle your plastic. Also run your credit report about three months later at www. annualcreditreport.com to ensure no fraudulent accounts have been opened with your identity.
Rec. Center plan an ideal solution for Palos Heights Dear Editor: As a 73-year-old senior, a 44-year Palos Heights resident and an opponent of the 2004 over the top $16.6 million dollar Recreation plan, I support and endorse the current Recreation Center referendum. Our community’s quality of life is our key asset in lifestyle and property values. This plan is a very affordable investment in our community’s future. We need a continual flow of young families to maintain our community’s vitality. We can’t allow ourselves to think we are a seniorcitizens enclave, resistant to any investment in younger families’ recreational needs. Our Recreation Center needs have long been apparent and unlike the 2004 massive overreach proposal, this plan is an ideal solution to a very real community need. This plan offers
a wide variety of facilities for all age groups. I would like to thank Mike Leonard for his very patient, realistic leadership to our community’s recreational needs. Hope you join me in supporting this important referendum in November. This plan offers a wide variety of facilities for all our community’s age groups. Jim Keough Palos Heights
Hobby Lobby decision praised Dear Editor: After the Hobby Lobby ruling, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin announced he will introduce a bill requiring “all corporations using this Supreme Court decision to deny or limit contraception services to disclose this policy to all employed and applicants for employment.” U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) responded by promising Democrats “will continue to fight to preserve women’s access to contracep-
tive coverage and keep bosses out of the examination room.” People no more want bosses in the examination room than they want government bureaucrats and politicians! Women have access to 20 different birth control methods at local pharmacies. Sens. Durbin and Reid’s willingness to force businesses and taxpayers to provide for these non-essentials proves how out-of-touch progressives are when it comes to the role of government. Most Americans don’t want to pay for others’ birth control. More importantly, no one in America should be forced to violate their deeply held beliefs in order to keep their jobs or run a business. We should be free to live and work according to our religious beliefs, not the government’s religion. Thank God five Justices understood this foundational principle upon which this country was founded. David E. Smith Executive Director Illinois Family Institute
Inside the First Amendment
Court rulings produce ‘First Amendment fireworks’ by Gene Policinski We’ve celebrated the nation’s 238th birthday on this Fourth of July holiday weekend with fireworks of all kinds and colors, but there are some ongoing pyrotechnics around First Amendment issues from religious liberty to free speech. On June 30, the last day of its current term, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 vote in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Inc. that “closely-held” corporations do have certain religious freedom rights, and as such can refuse to provide women with no-cost access to some contraceptives as part of company health care obligation under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The decision set off verbal explosions on all sides of the issue. At the heart of the court’s decision is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a federal law that says government rules and laws cannot create a “substantial burden” on a person’s ability to practice his or her religious faith unless the rule or law is needed to further a significant public interest. Even then,
the rule or law must achieve its public benefit in the least restrictive way possible. In the decision, Justice Samuel Alito said Hobby Lobby and another company involved in the dispute were “each owned and controlled by members of a single family” and the families’ “sincere religious beliefs have never been challenged.” Alito cited an existing ACA exemption for religious nonprofits, where the government pays for such contraceptive coverage. Alito said that there are a relatively small number of owners and companies similar to Hobby Lobby’s situation, so the added costs will not be a serious burden on the government. In a dissent, Justice Ruth Ginsburg warned of a flood of such objections — noting that Jehovah’s Witnesses object on religious grounds to blood transfusions and that some Muslims, Jews and Hindus object to medicines and other health products produced from pigs. The legal concept of “corporations as people” — upheld in the Hobby Lobby ruling
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— could well produce another kind of First Amendment “big bang” later this month. The Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission eliminated limits on independent corporate spending in support of candidates running for federal office. Opposition to the court decision has produced a proposed constitutional amendment to reestablish congressional authority to set “reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others,” and to allow Congress and states to ban campaign spending by “corporations or other artificial entities.” If enacted, it would be the first such “amendment” of the First Amendment since the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. Senate majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said the proposal will be considered later this month by the Senate Judiciary Committee, following passage June 18 in a Senate subcommittee. Fiery confrontations of a more personal and emotional kind were forecast by “prochoice” advocates in the wake
of another free speech case, McCullen v. Coakley, in which the Court in June struck down a Massachusetts law establishing a buffer zone extending 35 feet from the doorway of any facility where abortions were performed — including public areas like sidewalks. Anti-abortion advocates had complained to the courts that at such a distance they could not effectively speak to women headed to the clinics, to counsel them on alternatives to an abortion. While state officials and others warned of intimidating tactics or the potential for violence outside such facilities without such a limit, the court said state officials failed to show the 35-foot distance was the least restrictive method of impinging on the speech of antabortion demonstrators. The decision left open whether a smaller “no speech” zone would be acceptable to the justices. Even the Supreme Court itself was not immune this term to a rare dramatic outburst. As First Amendment scholar and author Ron Collins noted in his recent FAN 21 (First Amendment News) blog, in
May a spectator stood and spoke loudly during a court session. Asking the justices to reverse their Citizens United decision, he said, “I arise on behalf of the vast majority of the people of the United States who believe that money is not speech, corporations are not people and that our democracy should not be for sale to the highest bidder.” The incident secretly was recorded on video and released on the Web. Ironically, the Supreme Court does not permit any cameras in its courtroom, or videotaping of its proceedings. The pops, bangs and bright explosions of Independence Day celebrations fade quickly, but not the figurative fireworks over how we apply — and at times balance against each other — our core freedoms of religion and free expression in matters of everyday life. Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institute’s First Amendment Center. He can be reached at gpolicinski@newseum.org.
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Lindsey Jutzi and her daughter Kailyn, Palos Heights “Up.”
April Nagel, Oak Lawn “The Fault in Our Stars.”
Rodger Hilder, Palos Heights “Planet of the Apes.”
Victor Levitski, Palos Heights “Lincoln.”
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V
iewfinder
What is your favorite summer movie? (Asked at Lake Katherine in Palos Heights)
Photos by Emily Smas
From left, Margaret Cohn, Evergreen Park “The Notebook,” and Cheryl Childers, Orland Park “Grease.”