I’m not a big government guy, but if I was king one of my edicts would be to make radio station owners more directly liable for the products that are advertised on their stations.
American Tax Relief shut down by FTC
If you listen to much radio, you’ve surely heard their advertisements ad naseum about how they could negotiate with the IRS to forgive large amounts of debts you owe the IRS, when they weren’t able to do anything beyond charging the customer a fee.
I’m shocked, I tell you!
My fav on TV is the red-haired bearded doofus dolt who looks like he seriously sat on a corncob and says something about his team of “pro-FAY-shun-nulz.” Radio and TV alike, they’re right up there with the ambulance chasers trolling for class action action. May the ghost of Billy Mays crawl up their respective anuses and make eternal pitches from there.
Not to mention the rogue antispyware software peddlers that offer a “free diagnostic test” to determine whether or not your computer’s slowing down is the result of that dreaded “spyware…” but then charge money to fix it. Cyberbaiting at its finest.
It’s amazing how many seedy companies can get airtime these days. They make 900 chatlines look respectable.
Today on FOX Cable News — FOX! — I saw this snake oil pitchman demonstrating an amazing bracelet that helps people … wait for it … wait … keep their balance. Holy Toledo! I immediately sent in my order for 2,000 of them. And FOX ought to be ashamed.
One of those moments when our best dead language says it best: caveat emptor.
I would like to see a study on correlation of voting for one party or the other with being victimized by these types of scams.
In Texas a few years ago there was an attorney advertising “pennies on the dollar” on IRS tax settlements. She was sued by one customer who owed $12000 in past taxes. She was able to reduce it to $10,800 then charged $5000 for her services. eventually she was investigated and did some time behind bars. Now there’s another one under investigation for the same thing. These ambulance chasers never learn.