We have North Carolina Attorney
General Josh Stein here with us today.
He is talking all things,
price gouging,
tax scams among other things.
You can text him your question.
Here's how you do it.
You text the number
336-379-5775. Your question is
anonymous and you get your answer
right here as we are live on TV.
Alright so first and foremost Agee,
let's talk about price gouging because
that has been something on top of people's
minds since the gas prices went up.
Oh my God, get gas.
Prices are killing everybody.
They've increased so much so rapidly
and we do have a state of emergency.
And that's important because North
Carolina price gouging law is only in
effect when there is a state of emergency.
And so we've encouraged folks to
file complaints with our office so
that we can investigate to see if the
increases are gouging or are they
a legitimate reflection of what's
going on with the global commodity.
And so oil is a global commodity
and prices all across the world
are increasing dramatically,
particularly since Russia has
attacked the Ukraine and Russia
as a major source of oil.
But so when the price increases and the
cost to the gas station has increased,
that's a totally legitimate thing
to have occurred.
It's OK for them to raise prices
when their prices also increase.
But what we don't want is any gas
station to take advantage of what's going
on with the global market to rip off
their consumers in an unreasonable way.
And unfortunately,
there's no way for regular folks
to know that.
And it's only after we've done an
investigation that we will know it,
and that's why we encourage folks to file
a complaint with our office so we can.
We can look,
yeah, and that's because you guys
actually get to look at their books,
right? And figure out how much
they paid for gas and wind.
So if people do think,
maybe this is price gouging.
How do they report
that? Very easily NC DOJ Gov slash
price gouging and it'll pull
you right to the web page where
you can file a complaint form.
Now what we want to know
is what are they charging?
You have some kind of either
a photograph or a receipt that
shows what the cost is and if you
know what the cost was before,
that's helpful information,
but it's not necessary.
The main thing is we want to
know the name of the business,
the location,
and what price they're charging
for the commodity
and go ahead and do that.
Don't just assume that
someone else is doing that.
If you think that there's something going on,
you just need to make the claim.
They can't look at it unless
you make the claim.
Alright, let's talk about tax day.
'cause that's coming soon.
What common scams are you
hearing about right now?
Well, whenever there's money
flowing in One Direction or another,
the criminals come out of the woodwork
to try to get their hands on it,
and so they will represent that they're
the IRS and they have some information for
you that if you don't respond quickly,
you face some kind of criminal liability,
so they try to make you afraid into
giving over your Social Security
number or your tax payment.
The other thing is,
there will be folks out there trying
to steal personal information
and actually filing taxes.
In your name,
to claim a refund and unfortunately
that actually happened to me a
couple of years ago and there
are ways you can protect yourself
from that by having a unique pin
number that's issued from the IRS.
So if you want that layer of protection,
you can get it and then the other thing
that we see happen at this time of
year is people who don't have enough
money to meet their tax liability
where they owe money to the government.
There will be folks out there who know that
people are financially in a tough way.
And try to exploit them and say,
hey you owe money to the government.
I can make that money.
I can make that problem go away.
Just give me $1000 up front or $2000
or $4000 and I can make your problem
go away when all they're trying
to do is take your last dollar.
It is against the law to take money
in advance of relieving somebody's
debt in North Carolina.
So if somebody is trying to take
your money before they provide a
service to you as related to money,
you owe somebody else. Run the other way.
And if you're in that situation right now,
you probably need to make a complaint
with the DOJ office and find out
what needs to happen with that.
We just got a question.
Will the IRS ever call me?
Especially like call me out of the
blue. They'd really don't. The IRS
doesn't have enough people to do that.
They will always send you a letter
with IRS stationary if you get
a call from the IRS and you are
concerned that it may be legitimate,
hang up the phone,
take the persons name and number.
They won't give you a real name.
They will give you a number 'cause they
want you to call that number back,
but don't call that number.
Go to the Internet,
find the actual number to the IRS and call
them directly and say I just received a call.
This is my name.
Do you have an issue with me
and 99 out of 100 times they
will say absolutely not.
That was a scam.
Alright, so we are continuing
to take your text questions.
We're also going to be talking
about some tick tock investigations
and some QR code issues as well.
That's coming up after the break.