The text arrived midday, saying a delivery to me was on hold. To fix the problem, all I had to do was click on a web link and enter my ZIP Code.

“Have a great day from the USPS team!” the text said.

The awkwardly worded message (with bad punctuation and an international phone number) was clearly not from the Postal Service. And if I can hazard a wild guess, I don’t think the senders really wanted me to have a great day.

They wanted to rip me off and, so, a word to the wise this holiday season:

Watch your wallet.

Fraud is a year-round, multibillion-dollar international enterprise. But for thieves, the season of joy is a wide-open window of opportunity, as AARP warned Nov. 18:

“With scammers looking to take advantage of consumers from all angles, new AARP survey research reveals that people need to be vigilant this holiday season as they buy gifts, book their travel arrangements, and donate to charities.”

Many of the scams are run by sophisticated international syndicates, said Kathy Stokes, director of fraud prevention at AARP’s Fraud Watch Network. Those crooks are working every channel, fishing for victims by email, phone calls, texts, fliers and regular mail.

Unwitting people are forking over money via gift cards, cryptocurrency, credit cards, cash and wire transfers. Losses often are virtually impossible to recover because the money is on foreign soil before the victims know they’ve been robbed.

Stokes said that in one common ripoff, thieves are going after people who own timeshares they’re trying to dump.

“There’s all this paperwork that makes it look legitimate, like you’re paying to get out of the timeshare,” Stokes said. But the crooks are pocketing thousands of dollars while the target is still stuck with the timeshare.

Last week, in a national conference on scams targeting older adults, Deborah Royster of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warned that consumers are being wiped out in a flash.

“Retirement savings and other resources that people have earned over a lifetime, and depend on,” Royster said, “can be gone in an instant.”

In that same conference, Virginia lawyer Julie M. Strandlie said her 85-year-old mother lost $80,000 between Thanksgiving and Christmas five years ago in a common scam that began with “flashing graphics and pounding voices” on her computer screen, warning of a virus.

“There’s a number to call for help, but it’s not the real Microsoft,” Strandlie said.

Her mother fell for the ruse, giving the criminals remote access to unlock her frozen computer. She was then duped into believing they had deposited money into her account, and she needed to pay it back in cash and gift cards from Best Buy and Target.

As LAPD Lead Officer Carlos Diaz, left, looks on, LAPD Det. Albert Smith leaves his card with Marta Barillas after a presentation about financial scams and physical abuse against seniors at St. Barnabas Senior Services in Los Angeles in June 2023.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

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Steve McFarland, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau region that runs from Palo Alto to Long Beach, said his office is getting 1,100 consumer complaints of all types each and every day.

He wasn’t kidding and repeated the number.

McFarland and other sources say a greater percentage of millennials report fraud than do older adults, but the latter group suffers greater losses. And across the age spectrum, McFarland said, gift card scams are hot right now.

Bar codes on those cards can be tampered with or photographed by someone before they’re sold, McFarland said. The buyer of the card goes to a checkout stand and puts, let’s say, $100 on the card to be redeemed at Target, Burger King or any number of establishments.

But when the recipient goes to redeem it, the funds are gone. It happened last year to L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn, who bought a $100 VISA gift card for a nephew who found that it wasn’t worth a nickel. Hahn later warned of the scam, along with McFarland, on L.A.’s Eyewitness News.

“It’s called gift card draining and these scammers have found several slick ways to victimize unsuspecting shoppers,” Hahn said.

In addition to outright scams, this is a time of year when solicitations for charitable donations can fill your mailbox.

“A lot of charities are trying to close out strong, and criminals know that and are vying for the same dollars,” Stokes said.

If it’s not an established organization that’s known for its good work, Stokes advised going to the Better Business Bureau’s give.org website, where you can type in the name of the charity to find out whether it’s legit. You can also find out what percentage of donations go to the cause versus overhead costs.

Your best policy, unfortunately, is to be suspicious of everything. I recently got a letter with my mortgage lender’s name in the window and opened it to find a warning that this was my “FINAL NOTICE” to avoid a monthly payment increase.

It looked hinky, and on the back page, in fine print, I learned that the mail was from a lender unaffiliated with my mortgage company.

If you see “final notice,” “urgent” or “benefit disbursement enclosed,” don’t even bother opening the envelope.

A friend shared a tall stack of mail that keeps coming for his mother, who died months ago, and as I sifted through it I found one attempt after another to separate her from her money. “Copy of Final Check Enclosed,” said one, and in the cellophane window was what looked like a check for $437.18 that said “Pay to the order of …”

But it wasn’t a check, of course. It was a solicitation from a lobbying firm claiming it will fight to preserve Social Security funding (and by the way, she had a lot of mail from organizations claiming they were out to do the same).

The fake check was described as an example of what she stood to lose if she didn’t immediately support the cause by pulling out her credit card and making an “urgent donation” to keep Social Security solvent.

And then there were solicitations from organizations representing a Noah’s Ark of endangered animals. Look, I’m an animal lover, but how does one begin to sort through all the pleas?

Save the pigs. The horses. The bees. The lions. The donkeys.

“Sunday, a baby donkey was ripped from his mother and brutalized,” said one envelope.

Lots of appeals for dogs, too. One included the photo of a dog with amazing verbal skills, judging by the quote attributed to the canine: “I wish for no one else to be hurt the way humans have hurt me.”

I feel for the dog, but if he can actually speak, let’s get him an agent and send him out on tour so the pup can raise a fortune for his cause.

Of course, there are plenty of good charities out there that are worthy of your generosity, but be careful.

With solicitations. With email. With texts. With phone calls.

All of it.

Banks should be doing more to prevent repeated, questionable, out-of-the-ordinary withdrawals and wire transfers. The gift card industry ought to be able to rein in rampant fraud with smarter security measures.

And people of all ages need to be more discerning, refuse to provide personal information such as Social Security numbers, and get some advice from a trusted friend or loved one before signing any checks or doing business with strangers.

Last year I wrote about two retired L.A. residents, a former teacher and a former banker, who were swindled out of roughly $80,000 apiece in internet scams. Earlier this year I wrote about a Redwood City woman who was taken for $1.8 million, and an Alhambra woman, Alice Lin, who lost $720,000 in an “investment” scheme introduced to her by a man she met on a chat app.

I reached out to Lin, who had some good advice on all forms of communication from sources you don’t know or trust.

“Do not respond,” Lin said. “Don’t touch it.”

steve.lopez@latimes.com

A plan by Advance Auto Parts to stem deepening losses by closing hundreds of stores will result “in a complete exit of certain markets on the West Coast” as the company shutters California locations, its chief executive said.

The national auto supply chain plans to close more than 725 locations around the country as well as four distribution centers on the West Coast, Chief Executive Shane O’Kelly said in an earnings call last week.

Although he didn’t specify which stores would close, O’Kelly signaled that the downsizing would focus heavily on California and the Pacific Northwest, saying that stores supplied by the four distribution centers marked for closure will also be shut down.

“Our four distribution centers on the West Coast serve a lower concentration of stores,” O’Kelly said in the earnings call. “We believe that investing in other core areas of the business will help deliver stronger profitability.”

Advance Auto Parts currently has 139 locations in California, according to its website. The North Carolina-based company operates about 4,700 stores along with 1,100 independently operated locations, which are primarily in the U.S. but also in Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean islands. Operations in Canada will not be affected, O’Kelly said.

The automotive aftermarket is a roughly $300-billion industry, said Bret Jordan, a research analyst at Jeffries. Supply chain efficiency is key for auto part retailers, he said, something Advance Auto Parts has struggled with. Whereas Advance Auto generally receives shipments from distribution centers about once a week, competitor O’Reilly Auto Parts gets shipments once a day, Jordan said.

“What they’re doing on the West Coast is getting out of regional markets where they don’t have an effective supply chain or the density to build an effective supply chain,” he said. “They’re trying to improve company wide profitability by cutting out the least profitable regions.”

The reduction in its footprint is part of the company’s “strategic plan to improve business performance,” according to a statement released as part of its recent quarterly earnings report. The company also plans to increase the pace of new store openings in higher-performing regions, the release said.

The car parts seller, which stocks batteries, motor oil and more, posted underwhelming third-quarter results this month, reporting a net loss of $6 million on revenue of $2.1 billion. The figures marked an improvement compared with the $62-million loss it posted for the same period last year on $2.2 billion in revenue. The company’s stock closed Thursday at $38.69, down more than 37% this year.

Advance Auto Parts closed a $1.5-billion sale of Worldpac, its car parts wholesale distribution business, to investment firm Carlyle this month.

O’Kelly did not comment on the number of employees expected to be affected.

Regular visits to the dentist to fill cavities used to be a shared ordeal for millions of American children and adults. The reason that hasn’t been the case for late baby boomers and subsequent generations is that the fluoridation of drinking water became common starting in the late 1940s and continuing today.

So it’s right to question why Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has placed the ending of fluoridation atop his list of first-day initiatives in his campaign against American public health.

“On January 20,” Kennedy tweeted a few days before the election, “the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.”

The reason, he asserted, is that “fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.”

That’s all flatly untrue or grossly misleading. Kennedy’s screed against fluoridation is part and parcel of a policy package that has legitimate scientists warning of a public health catastrophe in the making.

Fluoridation of tap water has generated local controversies ever since it was introduced in the U.S. in 1945. But it remains fully supported by a majority of Americans and by professional organizations including the American Dental Assn. and the American Academy of Pediatrics. That suggests that the proper stance of a Health and Human Services secretary would be to voice support for the practice. Kennedy has done just the opposite.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fluoridation is one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century, up there with vaccination, family planning and recognition of the health dangers of tobacco.

Fluoridation revolutionized dentistry, especially for children. Fluoridation of tap water was credited with reducing the incidence of tooth decay by as much as 70% when it was first introduced; by the mid-1980s, when other sources of fluoride, such as fortified toothpastes, were available, the effects of tooth decay in children were still 18% lower among those living in fluoridation communities than in those without it.

Who would benefit from the end of community fluoridation and a recrudescence of tooth decay? Dental supply companies, investors in which are rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of more demand for their products. For example, shares of Henry Schein Inc., a distributor of specialty dental products, have risen more than 9% since RFK Jr. was named as Trump’s choice for HHS secretary.

Kennedy’s tweet about fluoridation exemplifies the anti-vaccine crowd’s method of casting doubt on established public health policies. There are two elements. One is to portray rare adverse health effects — some so rare that their very existence is questionable — as major and acute threats. The second is to downplay the beneficial effects of a policy. That leaves the public believing that the policy has only adverse effects, and that those are immediate and severe.

Tooth decay is a little-recognized public health problem, in part because fluoridation has made it rarer than it used to be. But it hasn’t disappeared. The American Academy of Pediatrics calls it “one of the most common chronic diseases in children,” and one that can have “lifelong consequences.” It disproportionately affects children who are racial minorities, come from low-income families or have special needs.

It’s not only about the occasional toothache or cavity needing filling. Tooth decay can produce “incapacitating pain,” bacterial infection that may spread throughout the body, and, of course, to the loss of a tooth. In the first part of the last century, the only remedy for decay was to pull the tooth.

As of 2012, two-thirds of Americans had access to fluoridated tap water. Thanks to fluoridation, the CDC says, “tooth loss is no longer considered inevitable, and increasingly adults in the United States are retaining most of their teeth for a lifetime.”

More baby boomers reached 60 with “a relatively intact dentition at that age than any generation in history,” the CDC says. Interestingly, that makes water fluoridation more important than ever, since it means that seniors have more teeth vulnerable to decay than before.

Communities that have ended fluoridation have seen dental illnesses soar. Since fluoride was removed from drinking water in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, in 2011, Alberta Children’s Hospital has seen dental infections requiring treatment with IV antibiotics increase by 700%, a hospital specialist told the City Council in 2019. Half of those infections were in children younger than 5.

Windsor, Ontario, Canada, voted in 2018 to resume fluoridation five years after it had ended the program, after discovering that the number of children with tooth decay or oral conditions requiring urgent care had increased by 51% in the interim.

Opponents of fluoridation have played on paranoid fears for decades, but into the 1960s, these were popularly dismissed as ravings from fringe organizations. In the 1964 film “Dr. Strangelove,” the unhinged Gen. Jack D. Ripper declares that “fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face” — echoing the position of the John Birch Society.

The anti-fluoridation camp has long claimed that the process “increased the risk for cancer, Down syndrome, heart disease, osteoporosis and bone fracture, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, low intelligence, Alzheimer disease, allergic reactions, and other health conditions,” the CDC noted in 1999. “No credible evidence supports an association between fluoridation and any of these conditions,” the agency stated.

More recently, critics object that fluoridation “is being imposed on them by the states and as an infringement on their freedom of choice,” the National Research Council reported in 2006 — similar to the elevation of individual “freedoms” over communal interests that animates the anti-vaccine movement.

The anti-fluoridation camp scored a legal victory in September, when federal Judge Edward M. Chen of San Francisco, an Obama appointee, ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to review its safety standard for fluoridation in tap water. Chen concluded not that “fluoridated water is injurious to public health” but that “there is unreasonable risk of such injury,” triggering a legal mandate that the EPA take a closer look.

Chen’s findings were heavily based on a government study with a checkered research history. More on that shortly. Despite the limitations of his order, it may well be taken as a validation of suspicions about fluoridation.

What of RFK Jr.’s roster of adverse health effects? Let’s take them one by one. To begin, although fluoride can be a byproduct of industrial processes, it’s also a mineral naturally present in soil, groundwater, plants and food.

Arthritis? The National Research Council’s 2006 analysis of government fluoride standards identified “no indications” in the existing scientific literature implying “that fluoride had a causal relationship with … rheumatoid arthritis.”

Bone fractures? The 2006 analysis determined that the leading evidence for fluoride’s effect on bone strength pointed to lifetime exposure to fluoride at concentrations at or exceeding 4 milligrams per liter, which is more than five times the concentration in fluoridated tap water. The effect was found chiefly in people prone to concentrating fluoride in their bones, such as those with kidney disease.

Bone cancer? The main source of this claim appears to be a 15-year study led by the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, published in 2006 in the journal Cancer Causes and Controls.

In the same issue of the journal, however, two Harvard experts cast doubt on the study, noting that the original researchers were unable to replicate their findings when they repeated their study with new subjects. The results, they said, “do not suggest an overall association between fluoride and osteosarcoma” (that is, bone cancer).

Evidence of “thyroid disease,” as Kennedy tweeted, is similarly inconclusive, especially at the approved levels of fluoride in tap water.

That brings us to Chen’s ruling in the San Francisco lawsuit. His findings relied heavily on a monograph by the National Toxicology Program first published in 2019. The paper initially concluded that “fluoride is presumed to be a cognitive neurodevelopmental hazard to humans,” based on findings that children exposed to high concentrations of fluoride showed lower IQs than others.

The survey focused on the effect of water with more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, more than twice the approved level in the United States. It acknowledged that it had only “moderate confidence” that such concentrations could result in lower IQs, and stated that it had “insufficient data” to determine that the 0.7 mg/liter concentration in fluoridated tap water affects IQ.

There were lots of problems with the National Toxicology Program’s monograph. Two peer reviews by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine essentially ripped it apart, rejecting it both times. The program “had not adequately supported its conclusions,” the peer reviewers wrote.

The monograph lacked a “rigorous statistical review.” The reviewers recommended that the program “make it clear that the monograph cannot be used to draw any conclusions regarding low fluoride exposure concentrations … typically associated with drinking-water fluoridation.” Among other changes in the final monograph published this summer, the program removed references to a “neurodevelopmental hazard to humans.”

Critics also pointed out the inherent problems with treating IQ as an all-purpose measure of intelligence, since it’s well-known that IQ can be affected by “socioeconomic, physical, familial, cultural, genetic, nutritional, and environmental factors,” the American Academy of Pediatrics observes.

Kennedy’s mindset is curious: He has promoted treatment of COVID-19 with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which have been proven to be useless for the purpose, but he campaigns against fluoridation, which has demonstrated a health benefit over nearly eight decades. Is this any way to run a public health agency such as the HHS?