Fraud Red Alert

If you live in Colorado, you may be in danger. And it's not the same sort of danger the con men want you to think you're in. There seems to be a new organization in town, exploiting the fear of rapists and pedophiles.

A couple weeks ago, my grandmother recieved a notice, taped to her front door, which read:

ATTENTION NEIGHBORS

A SEX OFFENDER HAS MOVED
INTO THIS AREA!!!

WE ARE ASKING EVERYONE
TO BECOME AWARE!!!

FINED OUT WHO THEY ARE
AND WHAT THEIR ADDRESS IS!

WWW.NEIGHBORHOODREDALERT.COM

My mother happened to be over at my grandmother's house on the morning this little square of paper arrived. At first, they were both very worried about the new sex offender in the area. Fortunately, my grandmother doesn't have internet access, so my mother brought the paper home. During the time between receiving this paper, and getting home to her computer, she noticed the misspelling of the word "find" (it is spelled "fined" in this document), and became suspicious.

She refused to go to this website until she could get more information on it, because she was afraid of a scam or a virus. It took several phone calls to get through to someone at the police department who said that yes, this is a scam, and directed her to a reliable website where people can check to see if there is indeed a sex offender in the area.

The day after she made this phone call and checked the legitimate website (there is no sex offender), lo and behold, the same sheet of paper showed up on my front door. A casual look around the neighborhood revealed the fact that indeed, someone had distributed them to every house on my street (and presumably, all around the neighborhood).

I became concerned. Not because I'm afraid of sex offenders--they're a serious concern, but the media hypes the situation to get more readers or viewers--but because I hate frauds. So, I looked into it. I'm not as afraid of viruses as my mother is (I have really good antivirus software), and I know better than to provide personal information on such a website, so I looked into it.

The first thing I noticed at this website was that they claim: " If you received a red alert notice then you have at least one or more registered sex offenders living in the community, either under criminal justice supervision or having completed their sentence."

This is untrue. There is no sex offender in my grandmother's neighborhood and there is no sex offender in my neighborhood, according to my checks with a legit website. Yet we both received the "red alert" notice.

My next stop was the "About Us" page. I was given some frightening statistics about the numbers of sex offenders in the United States. Frightening, but dated. The statistics listed on their website are from 2003, and are manipulated in such a way as to make them seem more scary than they really are. Numbers don't lie. But the con men who manipulate them do lie, and that's the dangerous part.

The simple reality is, they're listing number of registered sex offenders, the vast majority of which are non-violent. That's right. Most violent predators stay behind bars. These numbers include teenagers who expose themselves in a mall parking lot. Unpleasant, perhaps, but nothing to worry about.

They also point out that "budgetary constraints make it almost impossible for the vital information to be passed out to each parent in every community." That's true. However, there are, as I said, legitimate websites, maintained by the government, that make this information available.

I was also invited to type in my email address and zip code in order to begin my search. I'm not that stupid. I created a new email address for this purpose and put in a zip code to see what I could discover. I hit the jackpot.

This organization charges $4.95 a month to provide this information to people who sign up on their website. As of this writing, I haven't taken the time to check the little information they provide for free to determine if their information is accurate. As such, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they provide honest information in this particular regard. However, if anyone out there knows differently, please contact me, and I'll be glad to look into it.

As I said, all this information is available for free at a government website. I suggest you visit the official government website of your community. They should have a link to the sex offender registry (and if they don't, they should have a means to contact them for this information.

Neighborhood Red Alert claims that their service is unique in that it automatically monitors the information and emails you updates. However, this is also untrue. Many of these government websites offer a similar feature, free of charge. They will email you information and updates related to Sexually Violent Predators.

I continued my search by looking at the "Contact Us" Page. What I discovered was very interesting. I used an online phone directory's reverse address feature to see who was listed at the address they provided. I found a listing for the UPS Store and listings for several private homes, all listed at the same address. None of the listings were for "Neighborhood Red Alert" and none of the phone numbers matched the one given.

Somewhat confused by this, I continued looking. I tried a "reverse phone" search, but that number is unlisted, and I couldn't find anything except that it's in the same city (Colorado Springs), but I already knew that because of the area code. I tried a business search, looking for "Neighborhood Red Alert" in Colorado Springs, and found no listings.

Here's an interesting note. When you submit your email address and zip code, you're required to click "I agree" to a contract before proceeding. One of the clauses in this contract is an agreement to receive “commercial electronic mail” from the Red Alert Team (that's all they're known as--no names are mentioned on the website) as well as their affiliates. In other words, you're opting in to getting spam e-mails from any "affiliate" of this organization.

Of course, we have no idea who their affiliates are. It's certainly possible (I'd like to say probable) that they're selling your email address to any companies prepared to pay for it. We may get a clue, though. I've created an email address specifically for this purpose. We'll see who starts sending me messages.

To sum it up, Neighborhood Red Alert may not actually be a fraud in the strictest sense of the word. They may well provide the promised information. However, better information is available for free. The address listed on their website matches that of another business, and they're luring people to their website under false pretenses.

So if you've found one of those little pieces of paper on your door, the best thing to do is just throw it away. And if you're worried about predators in your neighborhood, contact a legitimate source of information.