Map scam hits Mount Prospect chamber members

At least two members of the Mount Prospect Chamber of Commerce recently fell victim to a telephone scam where a caller named Tricia attempted to sell ads for a bogus map of the village.

Chamber officials are warning all members against giving out credit card numbers over the phone for such a map. The two members who did so were lucky no charges appeared on their cards, said Jim Uszler, executive director of the Mount Prospect Chamber of Commerce. The chamber figured out the scam soon enough that the charges were stopped, he said.

Upon research, the chamber found out that it's not unusual for scam artists to target chambers who are producing a map, which is what the local chamber plans to do.

"We Googled it online and came up of other areas in the country where this is happening, like out in Florida and Texas," Uszler said.

The chamber recently embarked on its own map project, but it hadn't begun selling ads yet.

Ad sales are supposed to occur this month. But it won't involve a simple telephone call from someone, asking for credit card numbers.

The chamber has hired a map company, Village Profile, to handled sales and production. A company sales representative, Michael Holmes, is required to meet personally with chamber members for sales and then contracts are drawn up, Uszler said. The maps are coming out next summer, he said.

In this particular case, it's likely the scam artists somehow monitored Village Profile, noting it was working with Mount Prospect.

The chamber puts out a new map about every two years, so it was easy to get a copy of it in order to target past chamber advertisers, Uszler said.

In the scam, "Tricia" told chamber members she worked for a company hired by the chamber to sell ads for a map. The ads' prices ranged between $400 and $1,000, she said. She even faxed over copies of the former map that the chamber produced two years ago before asking for credit card information.

"The moral of the story is don't give out your credit card to anyone over the telephone and investigate the company you're dealing with," Uszler said.