Tuesday, June 03, 2003

Wilmington, NC – Programming for the week of June 9 for UNCW Community Link, a new interactive, public affairs television show, explores how NASA is inspiring the next generation of explorers and discusses health disparities with the New Hanover Community Health Center’s Executive Director.

This week Betty Ann Sanders speaks with New Hanover and Pender County’s District Attorney Mr. John Carriker about the growing concerns of telemarketing fraud and identity theft.

Carricker warns, “Once someone has lost money to telemarketing fraud, they will never recover the money.” He wishes to remind citizens that they should never agree to pay a fee or taxes for a prize of any kind, “It is against the law to pay such fees, so this should be taken as a red flag and you should hang up on them immediately.” Carricker also warns the people most easily taken by these fraudulent money scams “are those who are confident that they will never be taken by such a scam and the hardest part of educating people is convincing them to hang up the phone.” Over $40 billion a year is lost to telemarketing fraud; tune in to see what you can do to prevent the loss of your money and identity.

New Hanover County Sheriff Sidney A. Causey joined Hunter Thompson this week to discuss some issues concerning New Hanover County. The new jail was a key topic. The $47 million, 648-bed jail being built off Blue Clay Road is scheduled to open this fall and is the center of much debate. Causey has been a busy man since taking office six months ago. He and his staff have successfully “restructured the School Resource Officers which means that the Emergency Response Team (SWAT) spends several hours each day at area schools to enforce school safety. We are also in the process of restructuring the narcotics committee,” Causey said. The sheriff’s office has recently upgraded its firearms to .45 caliber from 9mm, Causey said that the old ones had problems and the new ones are safer and cheaper.

UNCW Community Link reaches beyond the television studio to allow citizens to sound off on compelling issues facing Southeastern North Carolina. Hosts Betty Ann Sanders and H. E. “Hunter” Thompson, Jr. engage and challenge the region’s newsmakers and opinion-shapers and then ask viewers to voice their opinions. Through collaboration with the Southeast Public Interest Network of North Carolina (www.SpinNC.org), citizens can use the latest Internet technologies to continue the dialog on show topics and community ideas.



UNCW-TV has won four Awards of Excellence from the Alliance for Community Media.

For more information on this show’s topics please visit:

District Attorney’s Office

http://www.Mydistrictattorney.com



FTC website to report identity theft

http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft

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Washington, DC 20030

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Tune into UNCW Community Link

Wilmington & Brunswick County 7:30 p.m. Mondays

4:30 p.m. Wednesdays

1:30 p.m. Thursdays

7:00 p.m. Fridays The Learning Network on Time Warner Ch 5 and Charter Communications Ch 12

Pender County 7:30 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays

Government Channel 8

Carteret County/Havelock 8 p.m. Thursdays

Time Warner Channel 10

Jacksonville 7 p.m. Thursdays

Time Warner Channel 10