Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Post Hurricane Don't Get Scammed!

Transcript

Post Hurricane Don't Get Scammed! · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:00
  Don't forget to subscribe to the Conversations with Preston Scott podcast on the iHeart Radio
• 0:05
  app. Welcome to the Morning Show with Preston Scott, running a little behind
• 0:14
  thirty seven minutes past the hour show forty nine ninety nine of the radio program.
• 0:20
  Please to have with us Florida's Attorney General Ashley Moody. General Moody,
• 0:24
  how are you today, Good morning, Preston. Great to be with you.
• 0:29
  I had a conversation with a CFO last a couple days ago during the
• 0:34
  storm, and he said something I want to use to kind of introduce what
• 0:38
  we're going to talk about here. He said, you know, these storms
• 0:41
  bring out the best in us, and they also bring out the worst in
• 0:44
  US. And that's really kind of where you want to go this morning,
• 0:47
  is to remind people that their guidelines they have to follow when it comes to
• 0:51
  pricing things. Yeah, you know, price gouging laws take effect when the
• 0:57
  governor declares a state of emergency, and you know, it's kind of shocking
• 1:00
  to the conscious that anybody would look to make a profit when folks are trying
• 1:04
  to prepare for a storm and get essential commodities. But that basically tries to
• 1:08
  keep the prices down of the things we need as we're preparing. But those
• 1:14
  laws, you know, are still in effect during the states of emergency after
• 1:17
  the storm passes. So from wood to tarps to water, I mean,
• 1:22
  anything that is an essential commodity during the state of emergency would fall under that.
• 1:26
  And so if folks try to jack up prices that are far above the
• 1:30
  average that we saw before the state of emergency, that's going to be a
• 1:34
  problem. And you know, you're right, President. The other things that
• 1:37
  we look for are folks that come in and have you know, Now,
• 1:41
  some people have good intentions, they want to help people rebuild their good reputable
• 1:45
  contractors, but others are looking to make a quick book or try and take
• 1:49
  advantage of people when they're feeling under pressure. And our sheriff, you know,
• 1:53
  I was just in the counties yesterday. I was in Taylor, Dixie,
• 1:57
  Levy. They're all hearing about stories where folks are coming in and trying
• 2:02
  to take advantage of people. So we want to warn folks about the most
• 2:07
  common scammed and how to report them to our office. Well, let's start
• 2:10
  here. What's the definition of price gouging? Because I understand that can be
• 2:15
  almost a little difficult to pin down. Yeah, no, really, it's
• 2:21
  you know, we go back about thirty days and we look at what the
• 2:23
  average price was for that for that retailer or individuals selling an item, and
• 2:30
  if after the state of emergency, you know, they got that price up
• 2:36
  in an egregious way, that's going to probably violate the price gouging law.
• 2:40
  Is not going to be each sale and each retailer specifics, So we'll look
• 2:46
  at what they were charging thirty days ago, look and see if those actions
• 2:51
  were taken, and that's how we decide whether we can prove a price gouging
• 2:54
  case. So, you know, it really will vary on how much somebody
• 2:59
  was charging for the state of emergency and how much they are during the state
• 3:02
  of emergency. The Morning Show with Preston Scott My News Radio one hundred point
• 3:08
  SEVENFLA. We're joined by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. We're talking about price
• 3:16
  gouging people being taken advantage of in the wake of Hurricane Nadalia. General Moody,
• 3:23
  it occurs to me that some of the items that are going to be
• 3:24
  on a list of potential items that people could be price gouged on. Someone
• 3:30
  might not know they might because they don't buy those items very often or have
• 3:35
  bought them recently at all. Is there any kind of index out there or
• 3:38
  any kind of place that someone can find what that price should have been to
• 3:43
  even know whether they got gouged or not. Well, Look, the folks
• 3:47
  can always if they think that they have been taken advantage of or a price
• 3:53
  has been increased, egregiously, they can always report that to our awsome.
• 4:00
  We look at these these contacts, I mean fortunately pressed in and I've really
• 4:06
  been shocked at it says a lot about where this hurricane hit. And we
• 4:11
  have not seen the number of contacts that we saw in previous storms related to
• 4:15
  price gudging. But I always encourage if you feel you've been taking advantage of
• 4:19
  call our office. We have a hotline one eight sixty six nine no Scam.
• 4:24
  We even have a scam app, No scam app you can download to
• 4:28
  your smartphone. It prompts you to load in certain information and we'll be able
• 4:31
  to tell and communicate with you and what are during during the storm and immediately
• 4:38
  thereafter. We're trying to rapidly respond to bring those prices down in real time.
• 4:43
  We've already seen some refunds and then we can follow up later. We
• 4:47
  really want to make sure that in the time of crisis, folks can get
• 4:51
  access to these essential commodities. But really what we're hearing now is folks need
• 4:57
  to be aware that there are common scams happened right after storms. Unfortunately,
• 5:02
  it's not just repair scams. That could also be tree trimming scams, water
• 5:08
  filtration scams. You know, people will just show up at your door and
• 5:11
  ask to test your water for free. All of these things could kind of
• 5:15
  put you on notice. The sheriffs are on alert. We've we've contacted them
• 5:19
  and made sure that they're they're talking with folks and taking reports and reporting those
• 5:24
  to our office. If folks have been taken advantage of, and that's already
• 5:28
  we're hearing that's already happening. And so having you focus on this today,
• 5:32
  especially for those areas that can hear your show and learn this information, having
• 5:38
  them have the information where to go is so important, and I would remind
• 5:42
  everyone you can go to my Florida license dot com and check to see if
• 5:46
  a contractor is reputable. It'll have not only whether they're licensed, and ensured,
• 5:50
  but also whether they have been complaints, and you can always check out
• 5:54
  a company at Better Business Bureau at BBB dot com, BBB dot org.
• 6:00
  I'm sorry BBB dot org if someone is. We talked about it during the
• 6:04
  coverage of the storm. You know, I find it loathsome that people take
• 6:09
  advantage of others in these times. But those subcontractors and contractors usually they come
• 6:15
  in from out of the area and they try to pick off people and get
• 6:18
  deposits and that kind of thing. Is your office, General Moody the first
• 6:23
  place to go with those concerns, or is it a local contact in the
• 6:27
  county where someone's living. You know, we would ask that you report them
• 6:31
  to our office, and in fact, if you're not sure, we tried
• 6:34
  to come up with a very brief, concise statement of things to look out
• 6:40
  for and how to report. It's called scams at a glance after the storm,
• 6:46
  and you can go to our website my Florida Legal dot com. We've
• 6:48
  tried to make it as simple as possible so folks have something on hand.
• 6:54
  Look, I know folks are without electricity in many of these areas, so
• 6:58
  we're going to be pushing a re presentatives to the area of making sure the
• 7:00
  sheriffs and others have their hands on some preprinted copies of these to distribute.
• 7:06
  But we would ask people contact our office and they can also report it to
• 7:11
  local law enforcement and if they believe that the civil matter, they can always
• 7:14
  refer it to our office. Brilliant, well done, thanks for reaching out
• 7:17
  and anytime we're here for you, whatever the issue might be. You yeah,
• 7:23
  thank you, Thank you so much. General Ashley Moody, otherwise known
• 7:26
  as Florida's Attorney General and our guest here this morning. Let me give you
• 7:30
  those numbers again. The price gouging number is one eight six six nine six
• 7:35
  six seven two two six one eight six six nine six six seven two six
• 7:42
  six or seven two two six or one eight six six nine No Scam.
• 7:48
  The website my Florida Legal dot com. And you can also look up at
• 7:56
  at whatever provides you your apps for your phone, whether it's Android or Apple,
• 8:01
  the no Scam app. Just search for the State of Florida No Scam
• 8:05
  app and you can find that. We'll get to the insurance stuff in the
• 8:09
  coming days, but we'll have this information available to you. If you know
• 8:15
  of somebody that might not have heard the show the segment that can be helped
• 8:20
  by it. We'll post this up on our Conversations podcast as well.