Didn’t know ‘Who’ he was
THEY made the wrong call! A group of scammers who’ve allegedly been targeting members of the prestigious “Who’s Who in America” list tried to pull a fast one on an 88-year-old listee without realizing that he is the former attorney general of Virginia, he said. Andrew Miller was also a consumer protection advocate, and now he’s hot to catch the folks who he feels tried to con him.
Page Six reported that the publisher of “Who’s Who in America,” Marquis Who’s Who, has allegedly been the target of scammers who phone elderly listees purporting to be affiliated with the organization. Miller — who’s father, Virginia politician Francis Pickens Miller, was also listed in “Who’s Who” — told Page Six that he received such a call from a company that claimed it was a “subcontractor” of Marquis. The company tried to sell him items surrounding a so-called “Diamond Legacy Award” for $2,750, he said.
“Immediately, I smelled a fish,” Miller told us. “Having been attorney general, and having created, at the time I served, an office of consumer protection, I fielded a lot of calls from people that were ripped off. I don’t think these people who called read my biography.”
Miller — whose mother, Helen Hill Miller, was an acclaimed journalist for the Economist, Newsweek and the New Republic — began taking copious notes and stringing the callers along to gather more info. “My mother was disappointed that I went into law,” Miller said. He added, “[they] probably thought I was such an easy mark.”
He never got to a point where he bought the items, but said the company claimed it already had his credit card on file. Erica Lee, CEO of Marquis Who’s Who, uncovered an outfit that was fraudulently targeting listees and was shut down in 2018, but, “they’ll shut one company down, and start right back up again.”
She said federal authorities are investigating the latest fraud claims. During his career, Miller ran for governor, and then Senate — narrowly losing to John Warner in 1978. Warner was married to one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Miller recalled to us: “I lost to Elizabeth Taylor actually.”