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You may think that scams are just an American thing, but the truth is they happen all over the world. With the help of health insurance, life insurance, auto insurance company, and other fraud protection agencies and the founding of India’s Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS) to form the organization.
The “matchbox scam” was simply the fact that a matchbox which was purported to hold 50 matches only held about 35 to 40. Of these, several of them were of such poor quality that they either would not strike, due to a lack of the striking material, or broke so easily that they would not withstand being dragged across the striking or any other surface to be ignited. This essentially rendered approximately one-third of the already-short count of matches unusable.
The efforts of the founders of CUTS to report this to authorities was met with extreme indifference. However, instead of just ignoring the problem, the CUTS founders decided to do something about it, and they did. CUTS is designed to provide consumer protection for the people of India, and the organization does this admirably.
So, scams do exist in any countries, and consequently, affect people in the countries in which they are perpetrated. Some cause people to lose money, others result in identity theft, which can wreak havoc on a person’s credit rating and financial assets, others are just plain dangerous. They can be used to obtain personal information, which can then be used to exploit that person or make them the victim of a more serious crime, such as stalking or even sexual predation.
Consumer protection organizations, such as India’s CUTS and the Consumer Protection Agency in the United States, are working to reduce the number of scams that are occurring. You can do your part by reporting scams as you see them, and by no means should you participate in them.