Georgia Gazette Consumer Call-In

I'm Sid Hoskinson, and this is Georgia Gazette. On today's consumer edition, Secretary of State Lewis Messy. Hello? And Barry Reed, head of the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs. And they're here answering your questions. To talk to our experts, call us toll free at 1-888-66-P. That's 1-888-667-3224. Our phone lines are open and we look forward to hearing from you today. Gentlemen, it's been a month since the last time we spoke. So bring me up to date on some of the things that have been going on in consumer protection in the state of Georgia. Well, there are a lot of bills. This is Lewis talking to you. There are a lot of bills that the General Assembly, I guess we've got what, Barry, about

two weeks left. And a lot of these bills won't pass until the last few days. We still have House Bill 1420, which really opens up the definition of telemarketing for all to include a lot of new areas and also require some telemarketers to be registered in the Secretary of State's office. We still have the bill, Barry. I guess House Bill 71, I believe it is, that would allow consumers to be on a do-not-call list. That has not passed yet. We're hopeful that it will. That's right. We're keeping a good eye on that and ready to go over and testify just as soon as they call us. Isn't telemarketing telemarketing? How do you add new areas of telemarketing? Well, partly the problem is that they become so sophisticated and so slick at what they're doing that we've got, and we in law enforcement, have to stay one step ahead. And that means having laws on the books, the deal with their latest schemes. You know, we've gone through the phony recovery program where they call up victims and ask them for, tell them they can get their money back for a percentage of the findings and so forth.

And the human mind, unfortunately, the criminal aspect of it is a very, very fertile area. And we've got to just stay on top of it constantly and look for bills and laws that will help us to deal with the problem. Barry, did the bill also, more broadly, to find telemarketing include the credit, the credit checks and some might call and claim them for a certain fee they can improve their credit rating? Yeah. One, in fact, you can do that on your own. You don't really need to pay people to find out what your credit rating is and you don't need to pay people to get your credit rating corrected if something is wrong. There are laws on the books and just about anybody can do it themselves. Well, our toll free number today is 1-888-667-3224. This is the Consumer Edition of Georgia Gazette, Secretary of State Lewis Messy. Barry Reed, head of the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs. I'm looking, it looks like we've got a call coming in from Savannah. I'm wondering if we can go ahead and take Joanne. Joanne, are you there? Yes, I am here. I think my cell phone just beat. Let me ask my question real quick. Okay.

I bought a house. The concrete mid-dry highway was poured at an inferior, it was poured dry. I have a lot of stones in it and it's tearing up. And it really, I think in a few years, when the warranty is gone, it's going to be rubble. I've had some concrete experts look at it and tell me that it should be torn up and report. The contractors of builders want to just patch it. It's already been patched and the patches look horrible. They're stiff and they're raised and elevated sort of a relief sculpture on the driveway, you know? Joanne, this is Barry talking from the Office Consumer Affairs. I'm going to give you my number real quick in case your cell phone goes off. It's Erickode 404-656-3790-3790. If you'll call us and give us the details, it could be an unfair, deceptive act on the part of a contractor to use poor material and tell you that he's using otherwise or tell you he's going to do the job in a certain way and it doesn't come up to spec. Okay. We'll certainly get involved on your behalf and see if we can't get that adjusted. But you're right, patching rarely, all my 20 years experience in consumer protection. Each person's ever told me about trying to patch a driveway, it comes back with a

tale of woe. Right. That number again, 404-656-3790, thank you so much, Barry. Welcome, Joanne. Have a good day. You too. I have a question. Haven't we talked about this before? Are contractors currently licensed in Georgia? Well, licensing is really not the answer, certain, you know, we can do certain things. Lewis probably ought to mention since he has that responsibility, but we need to go a step further than just licensing. We need to really get involved in regulating the representations that are made by contractors. But maybe Lewis. You're right. Contractors, general contractors are not licensed in Georgia and there has been a bill for the last, what, Barry, two or three sessions to move them into a position where they would have to be licensed. The General Assembly has not passed that particular piece of legislation. The Home Builder Association of Georgia has gone about, I think, a pretty good, in a pretty good way, setting standards and certifying certain builders and contractors around the state that meet certain standards and I think that's going to also help with consumer protection.

Well, licensing is not always the only answer. That would be something that the state could do and perhaps we should be licensing them and maybe not licensing some of the other professions that we currently are licensing. But as Barry said, licensing is not going to solve the problems overnight. What we really need is a bill that deals with mandatory arbitration where you have a set of experts who aren't related to the builder or the consumer who will look at the problem, make an evaluation and make a finding and it be a binding finding. What we need to aim at is redress or restitution for the home buyer and a fair process for the home builder. There's a bill that introduced by our Center of Mike Pollock that would do just that and I regret that I don't have the number handy, but if you'll call the representative and find out that's a bill that I really wish people would get behind and support. Let me say the number, 1-800-888-667-3224 and I just want to know, with all the rain that we've had with all the storm-related damage, I would imagine there's a lot of people driving around in old pickup trucks through neighborhoods soliciting business.

It's a huge headache and problem and the public, we've got to continue to make them aware that if somebody's just driving down your street, you don't know who it is, making the pitch that they were just up the street paving a driveway or fixing a roof and they've got extra materials on the truck and for such and such a price they'll do the job back off and go with an established contractor or someone in your area that you know is there in your community, someone that you have a reason to believe that you're a better business bureau or through friends and neighbors does a good job. There are plenty of decent, honest, hardworking, good contractors that do your work. Don't get involved with somebody you don't know. But once you've contracted and once they've begun the work and they've done a bad job or they haven't done the work and you've paid them, there's not a whole lot of redress is there. What you need to do is quickly notify the Office of Consumer Affairs and with us today as a member of my elder fraud program, Trillis Hoffard, and she deals with the calls from people from all over the state where home repair problems like you just described have happened.

In America, I think Trillis you've got a program underway, an early warning program that you've worked at with ARP on. We do, it's called the Fraud Alert Network and the Secretary of the State's Office is also involved in that with the ARP local social service agencies all across the state and the intention is to alert elder Georgians about problems out there, people approaching them and to be aware and we hope to get down to the grassroots level and let people know about it. That's great. Perry, I've also heard you mentioned a lot of the small claims court option and that would exist, I guess, in most counties for 5,000 or earlier. Yes, that's right. It's a good resource if you've got enough time and if you have the evidence to present on your own behalf, a lot of people call it a magistrate's court, you and I grew up known in a small claims court, it's the same thing, but you can get judges to listen carefully to your case and some of the projects you run into there is collecting the judgment, you know, you can get a good ruling but then you still got to enforce that judgment. You don't have to have a lawyer to go that route, no? Absolutely not.

Well, we've got a call waiting from Bob in Macon, Bob, go ahead with your question. Yes, I was the U.D. letter from someone in your office concerning a stock company that I had purchased some stock from recently and I was wondering if there's any possibility of certain companies not licensed to do business in the state of Georgia. Bob, this is Lewis Massey. I would have to know a little bit more about the actual case to give you a definitive response. What I can do though, if you have a pen, I'll give you a toll free number or a 404 number that you can call and talk to someone in our securities division about the letter. How long ago did you mail us the letter? We've been about a week ago. A week ago? Yes. Okay. Let me give you a number. It's 888-265-1115. That's toll free and when you get the recording, we now have an election hotline up on there to talk about the voter ID requirements. But as soon as you start hearing the message, just press zero and ask for the securities division and you can ask for Mr. Bob Terry, who's the head of our securities division.

Tell him that you were listening to this show and you wanted to find out a little bit more about your particular case. If you mail it a week ago, I'm sure they probably have received it by now and are looking into it. But if you'll call, I think we can give you some help a little quicker. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. The number to call today is 1-888-666-PEACH. That's 1-888-667-3224. I don't know. I'm really tongue tied today. I apologize for that. It's a toll free number. Anyone in our listening area can call and talk to Secretary of State Lewis Massey, Barry Reed, who is the head of the governor's office of consumer affairs. There's been a lot going on around the state. We briefly talked a little bit about some of the bills that the legislature is considering during the 98th session. I would really like to get a little more into the telemarketing fraud that's perpetrated on elders. Is that a growing problem in Georgia? What it absolutely is, I think, Lewis has said on many occasions that we were working to get the bill passed that makes it a criminal act in Georgia to defraud somebody over the

telephone or on the internet. We were talking then about, I think it was 40% of the victims and that's highly disproportionate to the population. 40% of the victims were over age 60 and they were losing huge amounts of money. We estimate the house consumer affairs based on the best data we can get. In 400 and 500 million dollars a year is being stolen from Georgia citizens through telemarketing fraud. That's a disgrace and we're working hard to find these people and put them behind bars. Lewis's office and I are cooperating on various investigations. The legislation that Barry's referring to passed, I guess initially in 96, I believe. That legislation also doubled the penalties for a telemarketing situation in which the victim was over the age of 60, if someone's convicted in the victims over the age of 60, then the fines and the jail time are going to be doubled. The other positive trend, I see occurring, is that we've been able to raise the awareness level of telemarketing for all, Trillis talked earlier about a network, the AARP and the

Georgia Council on Aging and a number of other groups are working with our office and Barry's office on this issue. Okay, we've got another call coming in, I just want to follow up because it puzzles me. We're talking about the elderly, people with a lot of wisdom, a lot of life experience and I don't understand how it is that they are targeted so successfully. Well, said they're getting mailing lists from various companies that are all too willing to sell them, people that they can assume by the fact of what they're ordering that they're got some years, unfortunately this is the population that was raised to be, I think the most trusting and therefore they're very vulnerable to a slick, sophisticated, somewhat sounding so sincere pitch and that's unfortunate. I've had people tell me that they've been asked to pray about writing a check for four and five thousand dollars and it's just a very vicious kind of process and we encourage everybody, if you get in the cold call over the telephone, if it's coming to you and you

really don't know who you're talking to, we urge you not to write a check based on just that kind of a solicitation. If you think you're interested in it, it may be somebody that is legitimate, haven't put it in the mail, send it to you and then do what you would do in any other purchase, check around, talk to your banker, talk to your attorney, talk to your family and friends and find out whether it's a legitimate offer or not before you get burned. Said I think requesting the information and writing that Barry just mentioned is one of the most important defense mechanisms that someone can put up because if someone is not willing to send the information that they're talking about in writing, then there's a problem there and I think that's the number one defense posture that someone can be in is, well I appreciate you calling to send me the information and writing and we'll get back to you if we're interested. That's right, this group that Trillis is working with an ARP has a code, a slogan and it's called hang up on fraud and we've just got to help people understand it's not rude, it's not impolite, it's not in any way unreasonable for you to tell someone I'm sorry, I'm not

interested and I have to go now good day. And also we're not talking about writing so much writing checks of 100 and 200 or $1,000, we're also talking about instances where people are asked to mail in 10 and $20, a time many, many, many times over the course of a month or a year. They call those reloads, isn't that sick? They call a victim that they get more than once, that's a reload and we've actually made a rest and gone in and seized their victim list and we've seen instances where they've hit, I think there was a man in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania that a company here had hit, I think, oh eight or nine times and it lost, I think $88,000 to these people in smaller amounts over a period of time and he got virtually nothing for the money that he sent in. Our number today, 1-888-66-Pitch, it's toll-free, if you can hear us you can call us, ask a consumer question of our Secretary of State, Louis Massey, or Barry Reed, who's head of the governor's office of consumer affairs.

We appear to have Janice from Sanborn, she's holding, she's on a cell phone right now. Janice, can you hear us, are you there? Janice? You hear me? Yes, we can hear you go ahead with your question. Okay, I took out a credit card, a master card, credit card with first USA company last August. I planned to carry a balance for one month while I was finding some expensive computer and photography equipment and I paid that balance off in full within 30 days, they assigned a credit card insurance charge to my account which was supposed to be an option that I did not agree to and I wrote them right away and said that every single month since then they've used that credit card unpaid balance to assign finance charges to every thing that I purchased even though I paid it off in full every month for the legitimate charges. I've written them every month and documented it, I've gotten not a single response, I put the president of the company and didn't get a response and then I got on the internet and found out that there are hundreds of complaints again, all kinds of practices on this

company. I just wonder if your office is doing anything to get aware of them. Your complaint is typical of the kind of credit card problem, Janice, that the office consumer affairs is now receiving. I'm going to give you my telephone number in Atlanta, area code 404, 656, 3790, 3790. If you'll call us, what we're going to do is ask you to make a Xerox copy or to fax us if you want, that information you just told us about will get involved with that particular company and there are many companies, Janice, that are doing this kind of thing and if the allegations that you've just made are in fact substantiated, it is a violation under those conditions of Georgia's Fair Business Practices Act, it's a deceptive act or practice. The key here is the disclosures were not made that any such charges that you've just described would be assigned to that card, so we can help you with that problem if you will. In fact, contact us and let us get a look at the documentation. Thank you.

We're going to go to John in Hilton Headies on a cell phone. Go ahead, John. Okay, I just got into my car and heard the last comment about investments over the phone and things and what people need to do and I just wanted to say I agree with you because I sell investments in Hilton Head and any time you're calling somebody and you want them to invest their money to help them make money, if they are not interested they should say so and also anyone legitimate, if they have a problem sending you something in the mail, it's not legit. Boy, thank you, John, for that comment we need all Georgians to listen carefully to what you just said and if you're not interested, be able to say, I'm sorry, we're not interested or we'll take a look at something in writing if you are. Thanks, John, so much for your call. Thank you. I'd like to get back to the previous caller, I think, and what are the ramifications for Janice? If she continues to hold this charge on her credit card, she's not paying it off. Well, that's why her quick action, what Janice did, she said she wrote them immediately. She'll have that documentation to give us. She'll have any kind of response or the fact that they didn't respond to further substantiate

her case. This can turn in, I will tell you right now, to a long-term headache for Janice, even though we're going to get involved with that credit card company about this particular practice, do what we can to get that charge removed, but there's still the matter of, a lot of times these things automatically go to the credit reporting agency, then we've got a long-term headache as one agency calls it, trying to get the credit reports fixed so that it's understood, this was no fault of Janice's, it wasn't a legitimate charge, and so we'll go through that process, but it's definitely not what you'd call a quick, fixed problem, but it is, if her facts are correct, it is a violation of Georgia law. You're listening to the Consumer Edition of Georgia Gazette today, our toll-free number is 1-888-66-PEACH, call if you have a consumer question or concern. With me in the studio is Secretary of State Lewis Massey and Barry Reed, who's head of the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs, and we have Ron on the phone in Byron, Georgia. Go ahead, Ron. Yes, my question was, what do I do with a contractor who's failed to come back and repair some work

if he did when he originally built the home? The sub-flooring had an excessive moisture in it, and as a result, it's caused the vinyl to come apart from the flooring itself, and the sub-contractor who put in the vinyl who worked for him in turn came back out, told me what the irony needed to be, but the contractor has not responded at all. We even held back some money from him, and he still hasn't responded. I don't know what avenue to take at this point. Ron, this is Barry Reed with the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs. We have put together a small team of people to work on home-builder problems, as a matter of fact, because your problem is typical of so many complaints that we're now getting. If you will, in fact, write us at Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs, the number two, MLK Junior Drive, Atlanta, Georgia, 303, 3, 3, 4, we will be happy to assist you.

I have a personal staff that looks at the more serious problems, actually goes on site, looks at the problems and gets involved first with the builder. We try to work it out with the builder, but failing that we can bring action under Georgia law at this time. We've got to build up in the legislature right now that would, in fact, have passed require mandatory arbitration with a third-party panel of experts who were not related to the builder in any way, shape, or form. We're hoping that bill will pass because it gives us a stronger measure of protection for problems like you've just mentioned, Ron. But again, if you'll write us with the problem, I'm saying right as opposed to call because what you'll need to include is any of the, a copy of the contract that we can look at. And maybe some pictures and photos, a lot of people send us photos of the problem and it's really helpful to us to. Yeah, the difficulty with this problem is that the flooring is a green, a hundred green color and it would be difficult to look at it. You can when you're right there on site.

Well, certain light conditions, right. Okay, well, if you'll do that, if you'll write us at that address I've just given you, we will definitely get involved on your behalf and see if there's something we can do. You've tried to work it out with the builders, what you told us, right? Yeah, and Mary Spawna back here. That's unfortunate. We've got a real strong and good building industry out there and it's unfortunate that it doesn't take very many folks like the one Ron's describing here to make you believe that the whole industry is just unresponsive. That's far from the truth. But when you got a problem like this, home being the biggest investment you and I are likely to make in our lives, something needs to be done to help us in these situations. We'll try, Ron. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Next, our number, our toll-free number is 1-888-666-Pitch. Why can't I do that today? Why can't I say that number? 1-888-666-Pitch. It's toll-free. If you can hear us, you can call, ask your question. We're going to go to another cell phone question right now. CC in Brunswick, go ahead with your question. Hi, I'm just an elderly friend over the weekend from Charleston, South Carolina, and look at her phone bill.

Well, she had called the psychic line three times, but they built her almost $900. And I need to help her in some way have those charges removed from her phone bill. Did you say that the person who had the overcharge, where does that person live? In Charleston, South Carolina. Well, if the person lived in Georgia, you could call the Public Service Commission, and I assume that that would be the case, Barry in South Carolina as well. And there is an office of consumer affairs in Columbia, South Carolina. Call Mr. Phil Porter's office, and you'll get that. He is the director of the office of consumer affairs in the state of South Carolina. He has the same job over there that I have here in Georgia. You might even mention that you talked to Barry Read on the air, and he suggested calling. And see if, in fact, you can't get someone from his office to get involved on behalf of that lady. Great. Okay. And can I get someone from your office to send me that in writing? And I'm in all the cell phone, and again, you might note there. Well, I can tell you too.

If you have access to a computer, we also, we can put it up on our website as well. So www.gpb.org and you can access Georgia Gazette. We hope that that helped you a little. We'll go ahead and see if perhaps we can get your number back at the operator who answered your call. And we'll take that number and Barry Read and Lewis Massey will go ahead and take it with him and they'll work on it and give you a call later. Sure. Is that okay? Absolutely. Okay. We're going to go right now to Judy in Warm Springs. Judy, go ahead with your question. Yes. I received an address from the radio, and it was for Farmingdale, New York. And it said that this was an address that I could send the telephone number to and ask them to take it off of all telephone marketing lists, and that it would be done. And I just wanted to know before I send my telephone number in, is this legit and is it something that I could pass on to others? Judy, this is Lewis talking, it absolutely is legitimate, and I want to repeat the address.

I think we gave it a couple of times last month. And it is the direct marketing association, operates this service, and if you send them your name and your phone number, they will put you on a do not call list. They also have a do not mail list as well. The address is the direct marketing association, or DMA, PO Box, 9014, Farmingdale, New York. And that zip code is 11735-9014. Great. And you just give your name and your telephone number. Absolutely. And just write them a little brief note that says, please put us on the do not call list. And then any legitimate telemarketing group from that point on will not call you. That's right. Thank you so much. Thank you. And we will, of course, put this address on our website as well. And Lewis, the Secretary of State's office has a website. And you have a lot of information that people can use. I'm sorry, I'm putting them on the spot, everybody's looking at cards.

Let me take this moment to give our toll free number. 1-888-66P, and I'll give you the numbers, 1-888-667-3224, and it's toll free. If you can hear us, you can give us a call. Lewis has his card out now. Go ahead. We do have a web page. We also link to a lot of other agencies in state government and private organizations that can offer assistance with various problems. The address is www.sos.state.ga.us. And the office consumer affairs website is being upgraded and it's supposed to go back on line within two weeks. And Trillis has the number right here, the address right here. It is www.state.ga.us slash GAOCA. Can you give it, that's a really long one. Can you give it to us one more time, I'm sorry to put you on the spot.

www.state.ga.us slash GAOCA. And that one will be online hopefully within two weeks. We're upgrading it. We're having our complaint forms put on there and people can download the complaint form. We'll have a head starting getting their complaint short-handed to us in an effective manner. This is great, thanks, we look forward to having that up and running again. We're going to go to Jack and Savannah now, he's got a call about contributions. Jack, go ahead, you're on the air. Hi. Hi, Jack. I receive frequent solicitations for charitable contributions from associations and agencies outside Georgia. And they say that my contribution will be credited to the Georgia branch, it will be used for Georgians. Is there any way of checking this out or to be sure it's true? Jack, this is Lewis Massey, I want to give you a number, there is a way to check it out

because any charitable organization that solicits money from Georgians has to be licensed in our office. And that means they tell us who they are, what they're raising money for, who the offices are, what their address and phone number is and more importantly perhaps they have to fill out a form with us every year that tells us how much money they've raised and where that money has been spent and that for your purposes I think is a significant point. Since you're in Savannah I'm going to give you the toll free number, it's 888-265-1115. As I told you earlier, just hit zero when you begin to hear the message show, we've got something else on the line temporarily about a new election law, but hit zero and ask for the securities division and they can give you all the information you need on the particular charity that you're talking about or any others that you may get calls from in the future. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you. I think it's important to mention that Lewis's office and the office consumer affairs both work together to go after these charities that try to operate in a state and aren't registered.

We try to share our resources to get the maximum effect in getting these characters out of that marketplace. It's about 1235, you're listening to the Consumer Edition of Georgia Gazette today, right here on Peach State Public Radio. With me in the studio is Lewis Massey, who's Georgia Secretary of State, and Barry Reid, who is the head of the governor's office of consumer affairs. We seem to have a few little glitches in the room today, but that's fine, we're all going ahead. The toll free number to call is 1-888-66 Peach and we have Christopher, who's waiting in line to talk to you. He's in Columbus. Christopher, go ahead. Thank you. I had a question. My credit is not the greatest in the world, which is probably not unlike everybody else's, but I heard about, and I don't know exactly where I read it, where I could get another number not using my social security number for credit reports. I wrote off to some place in Texas and they sent me back a form saying that if I felt

about this form, instead of $35, that they would send me another number that I could use, it would open me up another credit file and they said this can only be done one time. This is Barry Reid, the House Consumer Affairs Christopher. I hate to tell you this, but you've been scammed. Well, I didn't do it. Okay, good for you. Good for you, Chris, where I jumped a gun on you there. I'm delighted you didn't do it because, in point of fact, the use of these other numbers, rather than a legitimate number already assigned to you, such as your social security number, is in fact a violation of law, and anybody encourages you to do it, is violating the law. These numbers are called incidentally EIN numbers, and there's people out there that tell you that you can use these numbers in substitute for your other number, and they're trying to tell you that that way you can hide the truth about your current credit record. Truthfully, there is no substitute for the truth when you're applying for credit. It will catch up to you, and it will hurt you in a terrible way if you tend to try to hide

what your actual record is. If you've got a credit problem, not just you, Chris, but with anybody out there within the listening audience, the best way to correct it is to first write to the credit reporting company to get a copy of your report, and then under the law, in a hundred words statement or less, if there's any accuracy in your report, you can rebut that and it becomes a part of your record and can actually affect your record. The best way to restore your credit over time is to get someone who will take a chance with you on a limited amount of credit, and pay that off well, and start to reestablish your credit in the community. These hiding with second numbers and all this stuff is a sure formula for economic disaster. Plus it seems to me that it would be dangerous to give your number, an important number like your Social Security number to anybody that you don't know, can that be used by them? Well, the fact is that most of us when we apply for credit to legitimate businesses do in fact give our Social Security number, but there we know who we're dealing with, and

hopefully it's a reputable business that isn't going to be taking your number and misusing it. The problem comes in when people have a credit problem, don't want to use that Social Security number because they know attached to that number is an unfavorable rating. If only they can find some other number, well, they can hide this unfortunate reality from the credit tour. The best thing to do is to tell the truth and work to reestablish good credit. It's a sure formula for us staying out of difficulty. Our toll free number is 1-888-66-PEACH. We're going to go to Emily in Athens, who has a landlord problem. Go ahead, Emily. Hi. I wanted to know, I think I've had several problems with my landlord over the last year and a half, and I need to know if I have any reason to not to sue, but to at least get some compensation. So I just need to describe the problem. That would be good.

Okay. I've never talked on the radio before. This is my system. We rent a very old house, and we've had continuous pest problems in the form of mice. We've also had carbon monoxide leaks, and recently we've been told that there's improper ventilation in the house, and I've been saying this for about three months because all my furniture is molding and warping, and the house is constantly wet, and it's gone to the point where I'm incurring property damage on my own, and I'm just fed up. I don't know what type of options I have as a tenant. Okay. There is a landlord tenant law in Georgia that governs what is acceptable and what, this is Barry Reed, the else consumer fairs talking. What is acceptable and what is not acceptable, and the part of both the tenant and the landlord, if you will call our office at 404-656-3790, we'll do several things. We'll intake you as a complainant. See if there's something we can do under the laws that we administer. We'll see to it

that you get a copy of the law. It's in plain English that tells what your rights are. I think implied in the rental of a property is that the property is, in fact, inhabitable, and the description of the situation with the pest and the mold and the carbon monoxide creating health hazards. I don't know that that apartment that you're in or home that you're in is, in fact, habitable under those circumstances, and it might really affect your ability to either get them to correct the problem or to get out from the lease, but if you'll notify us, we'll take this problem on and see if we can help you. Emily, I want to know why you just don't move. Well, you know, that's the thing. It was an old house and my sister now had a design company from the company, the city that we lived in before, so we went in and we saw a lot of potential and we fixed it up, but in good faith we rented it and we had no idea it had all these problems. And moving is expensive and it's just gotten to the point where we realized that, you know, we're just between a rock

and a hard place. The other thing I will mention is when you call us, we'll also get you in touch with the state office of housing assistance. They have some codes and some rules that come into play as well. Well, the problem you've described as serious as it is, surely something can be done to give you the best possible solution to a difficult problem. Well, I certainly appreciate it. You're right and welcome. Thanks. Thanks, Emily. We're going to go next to Debbie in Maconge. I guess she has a lemony car. Go ahead, Debbie. Thanks for taking my call. I have a question. In August of 97, I bought a brand new Cherokee country from a major dealership in Milligal Georgia and a work in live in Atlanta and it's been serviced at a major, cheap, eagled dealership in Buckhead. And from the end of November until the end of January, the car was consistently in the shop for about six weeks. It began with smoke. Debbie, can I just break in a minute and ask if you can just speak up a little bit?

Oh, I'm sorry. It began with smoke coming out of the air vents with a notches odor and I was told that it's just like when I walk outside in the winter that the smoke is like cold air on a warm breath on a cold winter's day. Subsequent in the cars had three heater core replacements and it's still whenever you turn on any of the air products, heater whatever, you get this notches anafry fumes. It's been taken apart, et cetera. I've had no luck with Christ, no luck with the dealerships. So now I'm forced to arbitration and I'm afraid that I'm not going to get much sympathy on a brand new car from Christ because they've been very insensitive today. Debbie, this is Barry Reed. In the covers, I was a consumer of fairs. Hi, Debbie. We administered Georgia's lemon law. The warranty rights program. It's one of the strongest in the country. I'll tell you that this past year alone, we have had more than eight and one half million dollars worth of new cars repurchased or replaced because they had inherent manufactured defects that the dealer or the manufacturer could fix. We have, I would

advise you to go through the Chrysler arbitration no matter what. Present your case. You should also call us at area code 404-656-3790 and one of my lemon law counselors will not only talk to you personally about your problem right now, we'll send you a packet of information as to how you can go forward beyond that arbitration panel after you've gotten a decision to the state lemon law program should you need to do so. Does it sound like a woman to you? Well, you know, so many times people call us with problems that seem like they're just not fixable, not repairable and low and behold, the manufacturer's tech rep will come to the scene and get involved and the problem will be corrected. Unfortunately, that's not always the case. Many times we also have a problem that they just can't fix and we've got a consistent program going that's got a good third party arbitration at the state level, the American Arbitration Association has panelists all over the state who meet

and hear cases just like yours and I feel certain that one way or the other, Debbie, if you'll go through this process, you'll get a good resolution. Okay, I thank you so much. You're welcome, Debbie. You're listening to the Consumer Edition of Georgia Gazette today. Our toll free number is 1-888-66-PEACH and call toll free, talk to Lewis Massey or Barry Reed. Do you have any consumer questions or concerns? And we're going to go now to Gordon in Auburn, Alabama who has a problem with a dentist. Is that right, Gordon? Yes, that's correct. Actually, my daughter, who was 14 years old on a routine cleaning visit to a dentist in West Point, Georgia, heard dentist for a number of years, the dentist allowed his young hygienists to do some cosmetic work while she was there for the routine visit. What do you mean by cosmetic work? Well, the hygienist had asked my daughter if she wanted her to smooth up her front teeth indicating they were a little rough on the bottom. And she proceeded to do so. And apparently lost control of it and got a considerable amount of her front teeth queried on doff, or

tea handed up somewhat shorter than they were originally. And this was a work unrequested and unneeded, and it was unsupervised by the dentist at all. Gordon, this is Lewis Massey talking to you. We have a board of dentistry in Georgia that regulates dentist. And I want to give you a number of the chalk and call to make a complaint against this particular dentist. Well, let me add to that that we did send, we did send in a complaint and this was last October. And one of the questions was, how long should it take in order to hear from this type of complaint? Well, you should have heard something by now. I suspect what has happened since that time is our investigators are out in the field doing some investigative work on it. Have you had any, what have you gotten back from it? The only thing we got back, which took about two months, was that acknowledgement that they had received our complaint.

Okay, let me give you a number. I want you to call the head of that division and tell them that you were listening to me on the radio. Okay, sir. His name is Bill Miller. And the phone number is Erickode 404656, 3,900. Six five six thirty nine hundred. Yes, sir. And tell them you were listening to me and I gave that number and we'll get right on it and find out what the situation is. It's not really unusual for an investigation to take a little time because we have a limited number of investigators and a lot of consumers that are contacting us, but I want to make sure that we are giving your situation priority. And if you'll call Mr. Miller, he can tell you pretty quickly what the status is. All right, sir. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. We're all just shaking our head and closing our lips really tightly. We're sorry. Does the board, so hygienists are regulated as well. Would his complaint be with the dentist who did not supervise or with the hygienist herself, who obviously couldn't do the work she was doing?

We probably have a good case against either one of them. I think in this case, probably the dentist, because he or she, I'm not sure if he said the doctor was male or female, the dentist was male or female. But anyway, the dentist in this case probably allowed something to happen there that should not have happened and the person that performed the cosmetic work in this case was not properly trained or licensed to do that. But he probably has a case against both of them. I've spent a good number of complaints that come to us and we route them over to the dental board and I think they take the position that the hygienist is an agent of the dentist who put them in the job there and they ultimately have the responsibility. I think that's right, Mary. Our number is toll-free 1-888-66-Pitch. If you have any consumer questions or concerns, we're going to go to Lynn in Savannah, who has a question about telemarketing fraud on the elderly. Go ahead, Lynn. Yes, my mother got involved in all of these. You are a winner, send $5 and proceed with this and you are a winner, send $20. Well, she got on so many mailing lists that she

actually broke her checking account. Then, check started bouncing all over the place and at $23 a clip, she soon ran up a hefty sum with the bank. Now my anger came about the fact first that I was on her checking account as well, my name and telephone number. No one ever from the bank, no one ever called me to let me know that this was going on and he was a little woman who had run her business affairs in a very orderly manner. All of a sudden, bouncing checks all over the place and no one called. Now, why can't there be a telephone call to a second person on a checking account when an unusual pattern like this develops? Is there a rule or a law that could be implemented to protect people like this?

Thank you, Lynn. This is Barry Readney, the House Consumer Affairs. Trillis Haufford, who's here in the studio with us today, receives calls like yours. I'm sure just about every day. Trillis, is this a typical kind of a problem that you hear in the office on order for us? It certainly is. I cannot address the issue about the bank and the phone calls, but I would like all listeners to know that this problem that Lynn's talking about, these games, these mail and sheets can become very dangerous because they are what we call lead sheets and they can result in telephone calls to the individual who is playing with the bulk mail. All right. Now, let's go back to Lynn's question about the bank. If I understand you correctly, Lynn, you're saying that here these checks were going in and bouncing and no one was notifying the lady. Is that the concern that there should be someone who notifies them? I'm not clear on that end of the problem. I got the front end, maybe. Well, my mother was having these checks returned and then running up a list at $23 the clip charges for a non-sufficient check return. It just got away with her. She kept

thinking, I have this money, but she put money into the account. You're listed on the account, right? You were thinking that they should call you and notify you of the problem. Yes, my name is on that account as well and I don't understand why if all of a sudden this problem happened, they couldn't have contacted the second person. Trillis is going to give you the number, the Department of Banking and Finance and if you'll call them, I'm sure they can be helpful in determining what should be done in a situation like that and who knows, we may, this may be another area that needs to be addressed with legislation. Go ahead, Trillis. That telephone number is 770-986-1633-1633, that's correct. Thank you very much. Thank you. And thank you, Lynn. We're going to go ahead and take our next caller up, Pat, in just up. So a question about a credit bureau and paying off alone, go ahead, Pat, you're on the air. Yes, what happened was my son had a full loan and of course I was paying it and I paid it off, got a letter from the bank, thank you, you know, it's paid him full.

He goes to get a car and finds out that he has bad credit that the loan is in default and it was the very same date of the date of my letter that it was paid off. The bank says call the credit, credit people say to call the bank. So right now you're in a situation where you're not sure who's, who's problem it is to address it? Who do I call? I think actually I think what I'm going to ask you to do is to take a little time and put this problem on paper for me and I'm going to give you a mailing address. I have people on staff that work on credit-related problems all day long and we'll try to sort this one out for you. It does sound, it's interesting that there's finger pointing going on at this point but our mailing address is the Office of Consumer Affairs, the number two, MLK Junior Drive Southeast, Atlanta, Georgia, 30334 and if you'll send that to us in writing, we'll

get right and get involved, look at all the, send us any copies of documentation that you might have, not the originals, just copies and let us see if we can't help you sort that one out. Okay, thank you. You're mighty welcome. And thank you. I'm going to go right on to Greg in Athens. Go ahead Greg. Yes, I purchased a home a year ago, October and I come to find out now when it rains heavily that the basement, you know, can get about six inches of water in it and that wasn't disclosed to me when I purchased the property. And I just wonder if there is anything at this point that can be done. Is it a new home? No, sir. It was an existing structure that was previously or rental, so it's entirely possible that the previous owner wasn't aware not having lived here. Was there a real estate salesman involved? Yes, sir.

I'm going to ask tell us if she has a real estate commission number on that list. If not, the Georgia Lewis has it, okay, we'll give you that number and that's where you need to make your call. There are rules that govern what needs to be disclosed and I think the real estate commission is the place to be. Thank you very much. Greg, let's give you that number. It's air code 404-656-3916, it's the Georgia real estate commission. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Greg. We're going to go on to Madison in Cornelia. Go ahead. You're on the air. My question has to do with an insurance claim, my car convertible was the top was ripped open with a knife or some implement and some items were stolen out of the car. I'm not concerned about the items out of the car, they were recovered, but when the insurance company is now an appraiser to look at the car, the appraiser made the appraisal, God with the place where I was having it repaired.

They agreed on a price, went ahead and had the job done, then when I read God ready to pick up the car and get the insurance check, the insurance company says, well, the car was a seven-year-old car and now you've got a new top on it. We want to reduce the amount of the claim by 25%, they call it a betterment. I could see if I had had a total out car that I might want to get fair market value, but if I've just got a top cut on a convertible, I need to get the top replaced and if I'm paying insurance, it seems like to me that I'll pay the whole cost, less my deductible. This is Barry and the House Consumer Affairs. Insurance problems, of course, are regulated by the Georgia Insurance Commissioner and we're going to give you that number in one second. I think everybody who has auto or property and casual insurance ought to go to their dresser where they keep that policy, open it up and see if you have a problem and there's a claim made.

Is it replacement value or the actual cost that you're originally paid? Well, and on a click, this is considered under the comprehensive coverage and there's nothing in the policy. So nothing to dictate there, then I think Trellis, do you have that number we can use? The telephone number for the insurance commissioner's office is 404-656-2115. Is there an 800 number, I'm in court near you, Georgia. I'll be glad to give you 800 number to our office and the Secretary of State's office and you could ask him to transfer you. That's okay. It's 888-265-1115, hit zero and you hear the message and ask them to please transfer you to the insurance commissioner's office. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. And we have time for just one more call. So we're going to go ahead to, we're going to take a call from Savannah, problem with a banking and credit. Go ahead. Yes.

I have a bank here who defaulted on my property taxes and so the Calum County sent me default notice and I contacted the nation's bank. I contacted that bank and they rectified the problem. But the problem is now this has gone to the credit company and I have written a letter to the credit company to send me the credit history and they have been giving me run around and they have not been sending me the report. I want to know that whether there is something about this in my credit history or not and what can I do about this and then I have another problem. Well, let us, we'll take care of the first one first and if we have time we can get to your second one. All right. I feel certain that if he'll take the time to write this problem down and to send it to the banking and finance department and I'm going to give you that phone number. Trilest, can we give the department of banking and finance number and then they can give

you the address and then we'll deal with the second part of your problem. But I think banking and finance would control the what needs to be done to help you with the problem here. The telephone number is 770-986-1633. We have a couple more people holding. I'm not sure if we're going to be able to get to them right now. I did want to take a minute and give the address again to have your name taken off of telemarketing lists. I wrote it down. Do you want to give it Lewis RealFast? Direct Marketing Association, Post Office Box 9014, Farmingdale, New York 11735-9014. We've run out of time and I'd like to thank both of you, Secretary of State Lewis Massie, Barry Reed, Head of the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs for being with us today. Our program is produced by Susanna Capeludo and Melissa Gray. Our engineer was Art Sweat. I'm Sid Hoskinson and for the entire Georgia Gazette team, thanks for listening. Broadcast of Georgia Gazette is made possible in part by a grant from West Point Stevens.

If you have any comments or questions about this program, please write to Georgia Gazette, Peachtate Public Radio, 260 14th Street, Northwest, Atlanta, Georgia, 30318. Or you can access Georgia Gazette on the worldwide web at www.gpp.org. Georgia Gazette is a public affairs presentation of Peachtate Public Radio. I'm just clearly saying that if you're wrong, you're wrong and the justice should prevail

across racial lines, across economic lines, justice is justice and is that kind of information that led us into saying these officers should actually have a trial and all this sort of thing. We're wrong. No problem with them coming to justice. If they, in fact, did wrong, they need to pay the price for it, but that they should be given an opportunity just like anyone else. Now what cared us further was the statements, what cared us further. What cared us further was the statements made by Georgia Enfield. It was not that we are inherently against Georgia Enfield, what happened in this particular case was one of the attorneys decided to introduce evidence about how the stain came into being and about how black officers were targeted.

And the judge ruled on that. There would not have been a problem had he just outright ruled that I would not accept any information dealing with race because this is beyond race, it's an issue where there are drugs in the community and we want to read our community of drugs so therefore we're moving forward on that. And he made a statement similar to that, but he went further. He didn't just start with his ruling on that and didn't do it. He made a statement that began to show that in his mind, he may have already made up his mind that not only these may be guilty, but anybody who comes before him that's African-American is going to be found guilty and that he's leaning toward that. And his statement was, the race car will not be played and anybody who introduces race in this case will receive justice and it will be swift and painful. Now if you receive injustice, justice could be what you have found innocent, that could be a part of justice.

But painful doesn't go along with innocence if I'm here in the world. And we became involved and it's sensed by that remark because he played the race car and it brought back ideas of the OJ Simpson case in which menifold believing that OJ Simpson committed the murder should have been tried and tried to get revenge on whoever he can based upon what didn't happen in that case. And that sin flags up for us and we were saying that any field should recuse himself from the trial based upon his statements about the race car not being played and about judgment being swift and painful. Those are basically not that these men should not be tried. Not that they were not accused of doing so wrong. The other evidence was also is that the investigation was a 20 month long investigation and the information that there were police officers who were dealing with drugs was given prior

to the 20 month investigation beginning. Well, a number of those who arrested were in fact wicked police officers and some of them had not really been on the street prior to the beginning of the investigation. So when they came on the force, they became a part of an operation which meant from the beginning, they were not the reasons that the investigation actually started. But they became a part of something because there was an outright recruitment effort going on to bring folk into this drug situation, this drug scenario to try to weed out who those policemen were who were dealing drugs. Well, apparently we have to understand they were not the ones who were dealing drugs at that time because they were not on the police force. So the ones who were dealing drugs apparently may in fact still be out there. And what we have said, what I have said, we have no problem with the whole county-wide

investigation of all police officers to make sure that nobody is dealing drugs, using drugs or whatever else. We have a favor of all that, a fair investigation, straight across the board. And if you have a department-wide investigation and you came up with 10 African-Americans, what didn't find, there's no problem, there's no call on the racism, prosecute them to the full extent of the law, that's fine. But if we're only looking at African-Americans for being in the ones dealing drugs and committing crimes, we have a problem with that. Judge Eddenfield, I've talked to a few people who have been just the General John Key public out in the square and there is a perception that he's a very strict judge and that he may be prejudicial. And just him, you've called for him to recuse himself, is that the word?

No doubt there's going to be like an appeal for whatever happens with this. On what grounds do you think they have a case of having an appeal? The fact that this was not a department-wide probe and that the judge made the statement that will not play the race card out of, you know, possible, I don't know if he's the right word, but just, you know, I don't want to deal with my courtroom being a circus. I don't know if any would have any grounds for an appeal. We're not, our involvement is not for specifically for the cases of those four coupons on trial. We're not, we're not into the case, we're not into the verdicts. If there was a not guilty verdict brought by any of them, we do not claim victory in a not guilty verdict.

We do not claim victory in a guilty verdict. We're not in this to try to get people off. We're in this to make sure that the process is a process where even in the future and especially in the future, that African Americans are not singled out as inherently evil and as criminals and therefore go get them because the perception becomes it and it becomes damaging for our children, it becomes damaging for each one of us, even how we relate to each other. If we begin to think that all criminals are black, I wish we had a society where we would have criminals period, but I know that we have black criminals, we have white criminals, we have black folk who do good, we have white folk who do good. I believe if there was an investigation about Savannah Police Department, that they will come out shining. I believe we have a good police department, black officers and white officers, but the problem was the process in which from the information we received and how it looks, it looks as if if you're black and on the police force, you treat it differently than white

and on the police force when it comes to prosecution. That's all we're dealing with. How did you get your information? We got information from one source of information was from the Reverend Raphael Warnock, who's a minister from the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York, one of his brother is one who's on trial here in Savannah and he brought some of the information to us and then once he started, just other individuals begin to tell us about things that have been going on throughout the community, just unnamed folk and then they have been, that information has been verified by different folk, different ministers and I'll admit that there's a lot of information that we received that we just don't even talk about because there's no way to prove it. But that that we've been talking about, about white officers having that and others, there were actually names showing us and this type of information.

It's my understanding that the FBI agent, the lead agent who was orchestrating the entrapment system. The lead FBI agent was in Atlanta for most of the time, was not even supervising the staying operation. I don't believe that standard operating procedure. We have a problem with that. We have some of the same concerns that the chief of police has and the mayor has. Why wouldn't the mayor of the city know that a staying operation is going on in his city? It just tends to make you believe that if, in fact, the mayor was a white mayor or not African-American mayor that he or she may have known that this type of operation was going on in his or her city. So what was going on then, if the FBI was, I mean they wouldn't just show up, I mean you're contending that they would just show up and say, hey, well let's target the black police officers that are in this event for us or who is orchestrating this? Who's behind all of this? Oh, I don't know. I really would like to know who's behind all of this because if we knew that we probably be focusing on that individual or whatever.

We haven't targeted it on FBI per se because we don't know how the information was orchestrated and all, but just the one who did the operation, we want to take note as well. We want the FBI to take note that in our community, we want to go on the record stating that we want justice for all of us and done fairly and equally. And again, we're not excusing any wrongdoings of anybody. If you've done wrong, you have to face the drama. You have to pay the paper. You have to do those things right. We want a law, we want a law, a society that's law-abiding and that's willing to respect the rights of others. So what's the good that can come out of all of this? The good that can come out is an increased awareness. It's easy to look at on the surface and it looks like these black ministers want to get these black police officers off because they're black. That is farther from the truth.

That's not what we're doing. And I would like to see come out of this is that even white citizens would say, just this need to prevail. If in fact there are other officers, black or white, who are dealing drugs in our community and have behavior, unbecoming of police officer, we want to see them off the fourth. We want to see them out there. We want to see them punish. Instead of beginning, loving ourselves in the sleep, thinking that all of the drug dealing officers are gone because the black officers have been gone through and settled because we've gotten rid of those black officers who were dealing drugs. If that we have a problem with drug abuse, drug trafficking in our community and among the police force, I believe we could get a good bill of health if everybody had gone through some type of investigation screening or whatever to determine it. We may in fact have zero white officers who are dealing drugs. We may in fact have zero black officers on the fourth now who are dealing drugs.

But that if we're doing that and doing it system wide and say that's the case, then that's all we were asking for is that we can reassure our community. And what another thing we want to do is go on record, on notice that our communities watching our police officers. I believe again that we have good police officers in Savannah Police Department. I really believe they do a good job. I happen to serve as a police champion. I know the work that they do and what they go through. I was shocked that the fact that any of them were in fact dealing drugs. So I'm not saying that we have a problem, so I'm not saying that we have a problem.