Have you been conned?
Robert O'Connor may have some advice
By ROB PRICE THE COURIER ADVOCATE

At right, Robert O'Connor reviews New York's Lemon Law regulations during last week's visit to the Steuben County Office.

BATH - Robert O'Connor calls it "the check writing scam."

The scam is the "most damaging" con job O'Connor encounters these days, listening to complaints of consumer fraud as a representative of the New York state Attorney General's Office. Sitting in conference room of the Steuben County Office Building, which he visits once a month, O'Connor outlines the shape of the scam.

Say you sell a necklace on eBay for $600. The buyer sends you a check for $1,000, then calls you on the phone and apologizes for the mix-up, claiming his secretary handles his checkbook. "Just deposit the check and send me the change," he tells you.

Two or three days after you send $400 to a man you never met, you learn his own check has bounced.

"This is happening all over," O'Connor said Thursday.

He has been traveling a circuit of consumer fraud complaints on behalf of the Rochester branch of the AG office since 1988. Over 20 years he has seen more than his his share of scams and helped hundreds of people sort out consumer fraud issues.

The week of March 3-9 is Consumer Fraud Awareness Week in New York. As a counselor to New York residents who have been victims of consumer fraud, O'Connor described himself as both a front-line investigator and resource officer for people with consumer-related complaints.

Worried that car you bought three months ago is a lemon? paperwork that needs to be completed if your case is to be referred to a Center for Dispute Settlement. New York, he notes, has "lemon laws" on the books to protect consumers from unscrupulous car dealers.

He also is familiar with the wide range of credit card abuse known as "identity theft." The term, he says, can refer to the teenager who steals his mother's credit card to buy a bicycle, as well as the waiter who stores your credit card number on a personal, hidden scanner while settling your restaurant bill. "It's a pretty broad subject," he says, offering a tip for protecting your own credit cards from misuse: Instead of signing the back of his own credit cards, O'Connor writes: "Ask for photo ID."

When he's not working in the Attorney General's Rochester office, O'Connor visits public offices in Livingston, Monroe, Yates, Wayne and Steuben counties to respond to residents' consumer issues. He visits the Steuben County Office Building on the second Thursday of every month from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m., answering consumers' questions in Room F1.

"Every time I run for Congress, it's tough," Kuhl added.

And he is not expecting help from the National Republican Congressional Committee.

"Well, the NRCC has its own problems right now," he said.