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UCAN interviewed with Channel 10 reporter Michael Chen regarding a new twist to the tax reassessment letters offering to lower your annual property taxes for a fee. The letters are very official looking and even include late fee penalties. As will be shown by Michael Chen, the service is free of charge through the San Diego County Assessor's office. Go to http://www.10news.com/video/18747844/ to see the entire story including an 82-year old victim who paid $186 for a promised annual savings of over $600 on her property taxes. She hasn't heard from the company since she sent and received the canceled check showing it was deposited quickly.
The first round of letters were sent to Californians before tax time in 2008 and the return address was . The second round of letters is now hitting consumer mailboxes. Last year consumers were sent letters by a Los Angeles-based group and this year, letters show the company return address as California Tax Reassessment with a San Diego phone number of 619-288-3340. Another letter recipient who lives in San Francisco is an attorney and noticed some irregularities due to the Los Angeles return address and the phone number listed as 888-879-4259.
An attorney at the San Diego District Attorney's office informed UCAN yesterday that any people who believe they have been victims of a scam or fraud, must first call their local police department to request a police report. What is unclear at this point, is why the D.A. website has consumer fraud division phone numbers listed. If the procedure is to file a police report, it might be more helpful to consumers if the D.A. website states this information.
Advice to Consumers: 1) If the return address is not San Diego County
Administration Center at 1600 Pacific Hwy, Room 162, San Diego, CA
92101-2474 and if money is requested, don't be quick to
write a check for a service that is provided for free;
2) Call or visit your local police department to file a report if you are a victim of a scam or have been a victim of fraud;
3) File an on-line complaint with your D.A., City Attorney and your Attorney General offices and make copies of all original documents pertinent to the fraud or scam; and
4) If you are receiving unwanted mail, the San Diego D.A. suggested removing your name from all lists by writing to the Direct Marketing Association's "Mail Preference Service" at P.O. Box 643 Carmel, NY 10512. Please know that UCAN does not endorse any service that polices itself in certain states and lobbies to get rid of existing legislation and pending legislation in applicable states. See
http://www.the-dma.org/donotmail/CRSDoNotMailReport.pdf .
UCAN's real advice is to read every piece of mail thoroughly or take correspondence you don't understand to a trusted friend to read with you. UCAN advises you to call numbers on letters to ask detailed questions. As my mom and grandmother always said; when in doubt, don't do!
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Just received this in San DIego
Just received one of these letters form CALIFORNIA TAX REASSESSMENT and thank God for this site.
I didn't send in the payment.
The address on the letter is:
PO box 600124 SD ca 92160
phone number 619-288-3340.
Report it please
Please report this information to the San Diego District Attorney office for consumer fraud. In addition, report it to the Attorney General for CA. If you are a senior and own your home or if you're not a senior and the letter mirrors a government letter, please file online complaints with the agencies noted above. Send them a copy of the letter with the complaint.
If the letter doesn't mirror a government format, a simple non-reply was an extremely smart move since you can do this yourself for free. In addition, the property tax division has been sending people money back on its own if the amounts due have gone down. No one had to file a thing since this division went through all of the property tax info just to be fair. Good for one agency in San Diego!
Just recieved one of these
Just recieved one of these letters form CALIFORNIA TAX REASSESSMENT and thank God for this site I didn't send in the payment.
the address on the letter is po box 600124 sd ca 92160 and phone number 619-288-3340.
Just received a letter today
Just received a letter today with similar information and we live in San Diego north county area. It looked very official though they used P.O. box as the only address, which is kind suspicious. Thanks a lot for the information!
Property Tax Reassessment
I got the letter from Property Tax Reassessment, trying to recruite me as appraiser to help appeal for property tax, they offer $50 for me to review the case, including go to court hearing for the case, which will be at lease 5 hours of works plus transportation for $50! They are doing business under "National Funding LLC" a CA limited Liability Company, but under California state record this name is nowhere to find. This is definate a fraud. Operating business as a LLC, but not registed in State. The tax appeal is free from assessor's website, and they charge customer for that.
Here is their contact,
Property Tax Reassessment
PO Box 25519
Los Angeles, CA 90025
Phone 888-879-4259
California Tax Reassessment scam
Yesterday 6/24/09, I received this scam letter and live in Santa Barbara County. This is the second notice about the same issue. Because I am leary of any "official looking" mail I did not respond and have no intention of doing so. I will file a complaint online today and appreciate your website more than I can say.
I received this letter yesterday.
I live in Orange County. I wanted to believe the truth of this letter. I am so happy to find out before I wrote my $179.00 check. I thought it seemed strange dealing with Los Angeles, when the Tax Assessor's Office is located in Santa Ana, CA.
Property Tax Reassessment hits again
Hello UCAN,
I just want to let you know that Property TaxREassessment started mailing letters to home owners in the Inland Empire about their services for reassessment of property tax. As you know this is a scam, this service are free with the county assessor. the letter arrived today April 27, 2009 here is the company.
Property Tax Reassessment
PO Box 25519
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(888)879-4259
new scam address
same scam received today, 4/21/2009, from
Property Tax Reassessment
PO Box 25519
Los Angeles, CA 90025
888-879-4259
Not sure how to add this to the case-load already offloaded by the SD DA. Any
suggestions? (I sent no money so have not been personally defrauded.)
just a suggestion....
Someone has to pick up the mail at the Post Office Box. While an individual might not want to confront the the scam artist in themselves, you can find out who owns the box and/or hang around the post office and wait until the crooks pick up the mail. I'd hire an off-duty officer to do it if it were my money, or gather with a group of others who were scammed to hire one.
The post office can tell you what time they put the mail in the box daily, and can also tell the police who the box is registered to.
Good luck!
did you find out if this
did you find out if this really a scam and you can get your money back?
Update on SCAM and contacting the authorities
Unfortunately I was one of the victims that fell to this scam. I usually do a lot of research when paying for a service like this but this time I think it sounded and letter looked identical to the county tax assessor, so I just couldn't wait to get my reduction in taxes. So after reading some of the suggestions on this page, I opened up an investigation with my Bank (Don't know if that's going to lead somewhere). Then I called the police department to file a report. The operator told me to contact the Economics Crime division since most fraudelent claims go to that deptarment anyways. So I contacted the Economics Crimes division and spoke to a detective. The detective basically told me that they know about this specific scam and that the amount I was a victim to is very small compared to the other victims that fall for this scam and that they can't do anything about it. He did suggest that I call the US Postal Inspector to file a report there since the scam/fraud was through the mail and a PO Box. He also pointed out that the Postal Inspectors will usually get the authorities involved themselves if they need to. Now just by doing a search online I was able to find the Post Office location where this PO Box is pointing to and the address there is:
GRANTVILLE POST OFFICE
4740 MISSION GORGE PL
SAN DIEGO, CA 92120
This is for the California Tax Reassessment PO BOX 600124 San Diego CA 92160 address that was on the bottom of my letter. With phone number: 619-288-3340
Sub
Very useful files search engine. rapidshare-provider.com is a search engine designed to search files in various file sharing and uploading sites.
SCAM
Okay all of these websites saying they are a scam, but what if you've already mailed a check? Now what? My father did and the police department (the nearest is 50+ miles away) was uninterested in taking a report and said to call the Tax Assessor Office. So what can be done to attempt at getting your money back?
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