This has been making its way around the mailing lists, so I thought I'd pass it along... Vicky Good Morning, friends and cousins in the genealogy community! The response to the identification of the genealogy rip-off operation in Denver last week has been tremendous with a steady stream of requests for add'l info. The operation in Denver with a newly discovered "branch" in Utah is an incarnation of the identical scheme that Halbert's used. The same form letters, books and newsletters are being sold, and the same fake "Crests" and other products are being created "to exacting standards". The new incarnation has not yet been linked financially to Halbert´s or NUMA (Halbert parent), but the resemblance is so close, they could be joined at the hip, operating under dba's Mountain West News Service, Mountain Pacific News Service, and MORPHCORP. The Better Business Bureau reports that the company has joined the BBB in January 2000, opened in 1985, and is rated as satisfactory. A complete history of Halbert's, courtesy of Jeff Scism (despite our surname homonyms, we ain't kin --- he hopes!) is available at http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~blksheep/shame/halberts.htm Volunteers interested in assisting in informing the genealogy community of this scam have come out of the woodwork. We would ask the recipients of this email the following: 1) A sample of the Colorado flyer is at http://www.dfc.cc/CyberCousins/genfraud.jpg Print it and post in the genealogy section at your library with appropriate message and make announcements at your gensoc. 2) After you have read it, as a researcher you realize the fraud that it is. Go to the Federal Trade Commissions website at https://www.ftc.gov/ftc/complaint.htm and file a complaint ONLINE. For a sample complaint and further detailed information to use, please go to http://www.dfc.cc/CyberCousins/complaint.txt 3) Forward this to every list you are on. 4) If you are a member of NGS ([email protected]) or FGS ([email protected]), contact those organizations and ask that they get members motivated. Gentech, Inc. ([email protected]) has a director and a well-known regular conference speaker in the Denver metro. I asked them to do some local research. No response to date. 5) Contact every genealogy columnist whose work you read, both local and online such as Myra Gormley ([email protected]} or Dick Eastman ([email protected]) who was stalwart in early work on Halbert's, both of whom, as well as others, are on this list. No response to date. 6} If you have rec'd a flyer yourself, please report the names and addresses to me. We need to know all the DBAs they are using. Then take it to the local post office and file a complaint. 7) If you are in the Denver area, we need search of the court house records to determine any corporate connections. If we can make a corporate connection, I am fairly sure the restraints placed on Halbert's can be extended by the proper authorities. 8) If you are a supplier (software, services, researcher) to the genealogy community, this type of scam effects you even more. Contribute to the effort. 9) This is no small time scam. Halbert's is owned by a company named NUMA whih in turn is owned by CENDANT. Go to http://itjobs.cendant.com/cendant_co.html to find other Cendant companies. You will NOT be happy with how you have been doing business with folks like this --- I promise you. These scams are more likely to rip off folks less involved in genealogy than most recipients of this msg. Most of us will recognize it for what it is and trash it. That does not relieve us of the responsibility of making it more difficult for these and other parasites within our community to enjoy their ill-gotten gains. I have found far too many that "don't want to get involved", "Didn't happen on my watch." (to use an old Navy excuse), running from controversy and responsibility. Let us unite in eradicating those that are behind an obvious attempt to profit unethically from the popularity of genealogy. Joe Sissom