Scammer stories

From Jutta: In August 2025 my gas oven quit in the middle of baking a pizza. It had been giving me trouble off and on, but now the problem was urgent. I had recently had a very good HVAC experience with Dupont Plumbing and Heating, so I was overconfident about how easy it would be to find a good company. Nobody among my friends had a contact. So I went to Google. Its then-new(ish) AI feature highly recommended A Team Appliance Repair. The A Team website said they could quickly repair my exact brand of stove. I called them and the next day a friendly uniformed person appeared.

Big mistake. What happened next is that I paid half up front (the script and details are here) so they could order the very expensive parts. Within a week I discovered they were a scam. Among other things, they had inflated the cost of the replacement parts x 5. There were over 750 complaints against them with the Better Business Bureau. Plus there was a long list of complaints submitted to the Consumer Protection Bureau, plus there were news items about their tactics.

Lesson learned! But there were some good bits (silver lining to the cloud):

1. I discovered the Right to Repair movement, through a local contact with the heroes at Repair Cafe.

2. I discovered that the broil feature on my oven, which I almost never used, had wonderful baking features that made some new recipes possible.

3. We (CELOS) found that Erella's listserv had many recommendations for almost every repair issue under the sun.

More information coming about the Government of Ontario's complaints process as it develops.

From Gene: I got scammed buying some sweatpants online from a company that claims to be Canadian. Funny though, that the emails I got from them were all sent at night.

The sweatpants I bought from them did not fit, were poorly made and they didn’t live up to the photos on their site. When I emailed about returning them, I was given an address in Guangdong Province, China. I was told the mailing cost would be about $60, the price of the sweat pants.

The Canadian address on the original package said “do not return to this address”. It was near the junction of 401 and 410 which I could have easily driven to.

Moral of the story, don’t buy from online stores that claim to be Canadian unless you can prove they are and they have a return policy stated on their site.

From Erella: I hate thinking about how frequently people we love are being regularly scammed.

In general, I try to buy local unless it is a company I have dealt with before and know they exist. I buy art supplies that I cannot get here from a UK company.

That being said, there are millions of people out there who are engaged in sort of putting a hand in your pocket and taking as much money as possible before you figure it out.

It is a good idea to put the “canadian” company’s name into a search engine like Duck Duck Go or google and put the company’s name and review. You can see if people are generally happy with them. But still, it is easy to get scammed.

They go to a lot of trouble to deceive you.

Just the same, I was ripped off by a local contractor in our community. I paid money I didn’t have to get a new front door. He ordered the pieces that I paid for but it was all wrong. He did no work at all but I paid him in full.

Since I wasn’t given a receipt, I couldn’t return the indoor paint for my outside stairs, the too short front door and all.

I hired wonderful local folks to make things better but after all the money, the door is more drafty than the old front door was, before I spent the thousands of dollars.

I will have to spend more money to fix it in the spring.

We can be careful and yet we get scammed.

I keep on reminding people not to download any apps that belong to a retailer and check your bank accounts and credit cards regularly.

My friend who has difficulty getting around told me about a great new app that is intended for seniors who have trouble ordering a ride with uber.

He is clumsy with technology in general.

This organization takes a monthly fee from a person’s bank account and will get an uber or taxi to pick them up when the senior needs a ride.

He thought it sounded fabulous and was ready to download the app that would have access to his bank account.

Be careful.

From Ellen: Your friend could just call Beck Taxi 416-751-5555.

The drivers are mostly terrific, helpful and kind. They come to an address quickly and the cabs are clean. Many are new.

So that's the tip for the day! I usually don't use Uber.