From a resident:

 I wanted to pass on a scam phone call my husband received this morning.
 The call was a local 631 phone number. The gentleman asked my husband if he received his new plastic Medicare card and the new Medicare book. My husband said no, and the caller verified his address with his last address, which was incorrect. My husband told him no, and the caller had our address here. My husband verified “Yes that is it.”
  It turns out that Medicare is not doing new plastic cards at all. The part that we’re concerned about is that my husband said the word YES when asked to verify the address. This has been the trigger word that they are hoping to get from you…. The word ‘YES’
    It didn’t sink in till after he hung up and did some research online.
    Bottom line, the scammer is trying to record your ‘YES’ response.
  It has been brought to our attention that instead of saying YES, we are to say “CORRECT”.  They sometimes will even ask, “Can you hear me?”  Our response should be,  “I hear you.”
Do not say “YES, I HEAR YOU.”
                                          *****
Important Lesson: With AI ( Artificial Intelligence ) becoming popular; scammers will have these and more tools.
  • When you get a call you are not familiar with but could be your Doctor or something important, when answering no mater who they ask for or what, Say who is calling? If then you know of them you are good.
  • If they say they are calling from Medicare, social security, the IRS, Microsoft, the police, hospital or the jail or any other big agency and you expect no call, hang up. REMEMBER I have stressed this numerous times that Medicare, Social Security, IRS, Microsoft et all will never ever call you. If you are still not convinced, ask for a call back number and they will hang up. You can always verify the call by calling the agency.
  • If a hospital calls or the police to tell you a grandchild or or someone is injured or arrested, get the name of hospital or police department. Hang up and call back through there switchboard if the call is legitimate. Do not give money, credit cards or other information.
  • IF IN DOUBT, DON’T ANSWER ANYTHING. JUST HANG UP. 

July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025 Rent Increase

As most in the community are probably aware, the annual rent on the land portion of the lease has been increased as of July 1st. You may not be aware of how that increase has been determined.

Each year The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the area denotes what has happened for the past year. The rate can go up or down. Last year the rate was in excess of 5%. New York State has a cap on the amount you can raise a home in a manufactured home community and that cap is 3%. Last year the rent increased 3%.

The CPI for this year is 2.9%. Hometown raised the rent based on the CPI to 2.915%. I have spoken to management which confirmed the site where NY denotes the CPI but didn’t have an explanation as to how Hometown calculated it at 2.915%. Tara Edmonds, our regional VP is looking into it and was expected to get back to me with the information by Friday.  As soon as I hear from her, I will pass along the information. If their information is correct, it is as it is. If there is an error, no matter how small, the residents should be entitled to have the rate corrected. All future rates compound on the previous year.

The following are the sites of interest:

Consumer Price Index (CPI) : Click Here

New York State Regulations for Manufactured Home Parks: Click Here: NY State rules for manufactured Homes 

RESPONSE FROM TARA EDMONDS:

If you go into the link that is below and work through the website ( I sent you the steps below in yellow) you will see the chart in my email with CPI for February 2023 & February 2024 CPI, we take the 319.295 and 328.606 and place them in our system for the unrounded calculation of the CPI. Each increase is reviewed by an attorney to verify we are following the correct CPI calculation based off the lease agreement, so the increases that we sent out are correct-

CPI for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U)
Original Data Value
Series Id: CUUR0000SA0
Not Seasonally Adjusted
Series Title: All items in New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA, all urban consumers, not seasonally adjusted
Area: New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA
Item: All items
Base Period: 1982-84=100
Years: 2014 to 2024
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2020 282.020 282.577 281.975 280.623 282.092 282.333 283.624 283.478 284.551 284.121 283.291 284.350
2021 285.525 286.474 287.481 289.493 290.991 293.872 293.553 293.927 295.488 296.472 297.490 296.865
2022 300.164 301.151 305.024 307.781 309.243 313.589 312.615 313.28 313.88 314.338 314.975 315.656
2023 318.151 319.295 319.038 319.211 320.002 321.29 322.496 324.38 325.613 325.288 324.52 324.691
2024 328.006 328.606
CPI 3.0976% 2.9161%

 

To calculate go to:

https://www.bls.gov/regions/northeast/cpi-summary/ro1xg01a.htm

Follow these steps:

Next steps:

Data Tools Drop Down- Choose Top picks, one screen multi-site.

Choose Top CPI Current Series -Click on Multi Screen

Choose Not Seasonally Adjusted – Next Form

Choose Area- S12A- Next Form

Chose Current – Next Form

Choose SOA All Items- Next Form

Choose Monthly – Next Form

Click on Box CUURS12ASA0 and hit retrieve data- it will give you the chart I have above.

A fix to the security issue when accessing our website on Google or Microsoft Edge

Many still see the security warning when accessing our web site. “This site is not secure”

We are a safe site. Having done some research, we determined a way to tell your computer to allow our site only without a security warning.

If you wish to try to rid your computer or tablet of this problem hopefully forever, you can click on the link attached and follow all the steps completely. You will not damage your computer doing this.

click below:

How to fix the security warning from Google or Microsoft Edge when accessing our website

However the previous fix we sent on 3/11/24 will still work and for some may  still be easier.

State to take action against those charging illegal credit card fees

Since Covid business’ like restaurants, general stores and even medical professionals.

As of February 11, 2024 there are specific circumstances where a business can charge a fee. The attached letter from NY State AG’s office explains the way it can be done legally.

It may seem trivial if a business charges you an extra $1 or $2 but with the increased prices and the fee can amount to a large amount of illegal gains. It isn’t fair to be cheated. If the business wants to charge a fee; let them follow the law. Charging an 3% fee onto the bill is ILLEGAL. Administrative Fees are Illegal.

Filing a complaint is easy. Click Here  to follow the simple steps to get the AG to take action. We can’t ignore these violators. We should not be ripped off because some business’ feel we are easy prey.

Getting justice is one complaint at a time. To read the Attorney General stand on these fees read the attached: (Click on link to open in a new page)

NY State Ag to target violators of Credit Card Fees 00001