RUSH: Now, the scam. This is interesting. “Scammers committing a particularly painful form of identity theft appear to have hit on just the right formula to trick thousands of victims.” They are capitalizing on the heat wave and the power outage in the Northeast. And, by the way, forgive me here, folks, but Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia, the suburbs, we would have to say that’s our national capital. You might even say it’s the capital of the world, and we still have people without power after a week in the United States of America in our national capital. It’s a different day. We can’t restore power in over a week in the area surrounding the nation’s capital? We Americans can’t get that done somehow? Gotta be a union involved. But that’s another thing.

Here’s what the scammers are doing. These criminals are marching across the country and focusing primarily on areas where the power has been out for quite a while, state to state, knocking on doors, telling people that they are from the government and that they are offering a special federal government assistance program that they are describing as a bailout authorized by Obama to pay their utility bills. “Victims are given bank account and routing numbers to use when paying their bills online, but only after they ‘register’ by surrendering their Social Security numbers and other personal information.”

So, they’re going door-to-door where people have been sweltering in triple-digit heat and saying they represent the government, the Obama administration, and because of this disaster there’s a new Obama bailout to pay their utility bills, which will help prevent power outages in the future by making sure that the power companies are flush with money. So two things are happening here. A, people are being scammed. But the way they’re being scammed is that these criminals are approaching them and saying, “Obama, federal government, is seeing to it that your utility bill is going to always be paid so that you don’t have to. That will help your utility company always stay online because they will be flush with cash.”

So people are giving up their Social Security numbers and their bank routing numbers, account numbers on the premise that Obama is going to be paying off their electric bills. Now, these scams have been around since the beginning of time. These scams have been around since there have been human beings and criminals and so forth and so on. But I have to admit, it pains me how easily this is probably working, because people will believe that Obama has bailed out a utility company and is bailing them out, because that’s what Obama wants them to believe. That’s what his presidency means, bailouts of the people who’ve been screwed in this country by the profit seekers and by the corporations and by the power companies.

“There is no such utility payment assistance program”. It doesn’t exist. It’s been created out of whole cloth. “But electricity users seem to be falling for the ruse everywhere, making it in one of the more successful scams in recent times. Last week, 2,000 people were tricked in Tampa the local utility company, TECO Energy Inc., told msnbc.com. There were more victims in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and across New England. Utility firms in Utah and California reported similar scam epidemics earlier this year. And at least 10,000 people fell for the scam in New Jersey in recent weeks, Public Service Electric & Gas told msnbc.com. ‘We see scams once or twice a year, and a handful of people fall for them. But this is crazy,’ said Sylvia Wood, TECO spokeswoman. She said about 2,000 customers tried to pay their bills with bogus account information traced to the scam within a 24-hour period last week.”

So what they were told was that they’re setting up accounts that Obama’s putting money in, and you pay your utility bill from that and all you have to do is give me your Social Security number and your bank information and that’s how we’ll set it up. Obama cares for you. If something like this is being done in my name, I’d be embarrassed, angry, all those other things. Obama sits there going, all right, it’s working. It’s working.

Of course there’s a solution for all this: LifeLock, one of our sponsors. If you were a LifeLock member, for example, they’ve got LifeLock Ultimate now. Because this is typical; criminals, identity thieves are going for bank accounts now, not just Social Security numbers. This story illustrates it. If you became a LifeLock member, for example, you could give these scammers your information and it wouldn’t work. You’d be protected, because what would happen is you’d get a call, you’d get a notice that somebody was harping around in your account and you’d get a call from somebody, “Is this legit?” At least you’d have a chance to shut this down if you’re a LifeLock member. That’s what they do so well. I’m just throwing this. 800-440-4833.

LifeLock’s a great bunch of people, a great sponsor and they help protect against this stuff. And it does work. It’s been proven with me over and over. Save 10% by using my name, Rush. The number: 800-440-4833.

Yeah, it’s Obama’s stash. Obama’s stash originally was used to get you a house in Detroit. Obama’s stash was used to get you a new kitchen in Tampa. Now Obama’s stash is paying off your utility bill every month and making sure that your utility company never loses power because it’s never gonna run short of money in the future, ’cause you can’t pay.