In recent days, WPLG Channel 10 has carried news stories about seniors being taken advantage of through a scam involving grandchildren.
It almost happened to us.
We received a phone call from our “grandson” about a car accident, that he injured his jaw, and as a result might sound differently. The voice on the phone said his car hit the car of a woman who was pregnant, and she claimed he ran a stoplight.
The caller gave me an “attorney” who could get proof from the red light camera at the intersection that would prove his innocence. I was to send $5,000 from a wire transfer company. That way he would have no record. We started looking for the location and we finally thought something didn’t seem right.
We came home and reached out to our grandson and got his work answering machine. Then we called his Dad, who said he had seen him two hours earlier and that he was fine. We got a call later from the same “attorney” asking about the money. We told him we told our “grandson” to call up his father and that they could handle it.
A few weeks went by, and there were more attempts. I decided to play along and keep them on the phone for as long as I could. I figured by delaying them they couldn’t scam somebody else. Finally, I told him there were a lot of scams like this and we needed our word to be sure it really was our grandchild. Then, the phone went dead. Click.
Elio Rossy, Davie
DeSantis doesn’t get it
After Gov. Ron DeSantis spent nearly $160 million on one of the most dismally inept campaigns for president in history, one would think that he had learned some hard lessons. But apparently, he hasn’t.
He has ordered National and Florida State Guards to be deployed to Eagle Pass, Tex., near the Mexico border, to help Gov. Greg Abbott defy a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that requires the removal of barbed wire separating Mexico from Texas. Never mind that Florida law specifically requires that the State Guard be “used exclusively within the state” (See HB 1285 from the 2023 session and Florida Statute 251.001).
Does DeSantis really think that spending Floridians’ tax money to illegally interfere in another state’s efforts to defy a Supreme Court ruling is going to give him a leg up for another presidential run in 2028?
Jerry Barkan, Pompano Beach
The bill of particulars
He faces 91 criminal counts. He faces 717 years in prison if convicted on all counts. He faces $84 million in potential civil fines. He faces a $250 million judgment in New York City and being barred from doing business there, where he made his fortune. And on and on and on.
Yet, in spite of all this and more, he is the presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States in 2024. He received more than 74 million votes in 2020 and there is no reason to believe that he won’t do even better than that next time around. His following is beyond belief, and defies logical explanation (just read some of the letters to the editor in the Sun Sentinel).
If any human being can survive this assault and still remain standing, with so much tenacity, determination, fortitude and chutzpah, then they probably should be president. May God have mercy on our souls.
Marty Reichenthal, Boca Raton
An oxymoron at Disney
I read the recent public statements by Martin Garcia, chairman of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board, about the federal court’s dismissal of the free speech lawsuit filed by Disney. Garcia said that the district would now “operate and function as an independent government agency to promote transparency and accountability.”
Seriously?
Transparency and accountability in the DeSantis administration? That’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one.
Gail Schorr, Boca Raton