Seven Days of Random Basics On Fraud* --- Day Seven: Is This the Party To Whom I’m Currently Stealing?

*Share this, resend it, Tweet it, fax it, email it or just print it out and hand it to grandparents, kids, anyone on a fixed income, everyone over the age of 65 and, especially, the guy sitting next to you on a plane who, when he finds out that you know a lot about fraud, assures you he’s too smart to be conned.

==============================================================

“Fraud is a very simple crime to understand. I tell you a lie, you give me money, that’s fraud. It is never any more complicated than that.” – Jeffrey Robinson

==============================================================

The phone rings and a friendly voice on the other end offers you a once-in-a-lifetime golden investment opportunity. But, he warns, once-in-a-lifetime means right now, this instant, you have to say yes pronto or it’s gone, forever.

It’s like the old joke:

HIM: Day 1: I have private, hush-hush access to these shares that are going onto the market tomorrow morning for a penny and are worth at least 1000 times that.

THE OTHER GUY: I’ll take 1000 shares.

HIM: Day 2: We’re up to two-cents a share, you’ve doubled your money. Buy more.

THE OTHER GUY: I’ll take 5000 shares.

HIM: Day 3: They’ve just his ten-cents a share and they’re still climbing. Get in there fast.

THE OTHER GUY: I’ll take 10,000 shares.

HIM: Day 4: We’re going beyond 50-cents a share. I’m telling you, this is the bargain of the century.

THE OTHER GUY: I’ll take 20,000 shares.

HIM: Day 5: We just this minute hit a dollar a share.

THE OTHER GUY: Sell.

HIM: To who?

Sound apocryphal? Sadly, it’s not. Despite all the technological advancements of the past 10-20 years, telemarketing fraud is still a huge industry. Run out of call centers that are known as "boiler rooms" because, in the beginning, at least, they were in basements. The "salesmen" are scripted and only given a certain amount of time to lure in a sucker. The minute they hook a prospect, he/she is passed off to a second level guy who seals the deal and gets the money.

Once upon a time, boiler rooms were located all over in the country, or just across the border in Canada. Now, with international calls costing nothing, they can be anywhere. And so can their "local" number. Just because you recognize the area, don't believe that's where the caller is. In fact, he almost certainly is no where near you. International borders protect them from getting busted.

Little has changed in all these years, except the script.

Consider the latest trend, a woman on the other end of a cold call speaking Mandarin. If you don’t speak the language, you hang up. But a small percentage of 10-20-30 million computer dials calls will understand that she’s saying, this is the Chinese Embassy and there is a problem with your visa and you’d better call this number immediately.

It isn’t, there isn’t and, if you comprehend what she’s saying, you shouldn’t.

Using high-pressure techniques—talking so fast that victims don’t have time to think is one of the most common techniques—fraudsters offering, say, hot stock tips purposely pump prices.

Trust me, pal, this is a foolproof, no risk, perfect investment that you’ve got to make right now because my boss is pressuring me to sell this and if you don’t say yes right away, I’ll have to offer it to someone else.

Or, it might be a free vacation. You can have one week in the Bahamas for two, air fare included… so are meals, taxes, tips, sightseeing, everything… absolutely free… no strings attached. Except there are strings. You have to subscribe to something, or buy something, or register for something, and to do that, they need your credit card number, expiry date, mother’s maiden name and the three digit code on the back of the card. A week later, your card shows thousands of dollars worth of charges in Hong Kong, Prague, Marrakech and Punte del Este.

Or it might be a survey. We’re a non-profit organization trying to get information for a major university that will use it to help (choose one) a) doctors prescribe to senior citizens; b) banks better understand the mortgage market; c) the Red Cross get much needed aid money to the victims of some recent disaster. It sounds innocent enough, until you find out that the nice person doing the survey has just signed you up for a) prescription medicines from some questionable third world country; b) a new mortgage or c) a huge donation to a charity you’ve never heard of which, surprise, turns out to be the crooks.

Given the fact that the bad guys are so good at being bad guys, and have absolutely no qualms or conscience when it comes to irreparably harming people by pretending to be their phone friend, the best way to protect yourself is to hang up.

Next, you can put yourself on the national “Do Not Call” registry. It’s free. But that only screens out legitimate telemarketers. And while it won’t necessarily stop the boiler room crooks, once the legitimate guys have stopped calling, you can pretty much assume any telemarketer who phones you now is a scammer.

In the end, the best advice is the same advice our parents tried to drill through our heads when we were kids:

NEVER TALK TO STRANGERS!

*****

 (c) Jeffrey Robinson 2010, 2112, 2020

Excerpted from: Jeffrey Robinson’s There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute: A Revelation of Audacious Frauds, Scams, and Cons — How to Spot Them, How to Stop Them

 https://amzn.to/J6WZle

There’s more where this came from. If it amuses you, please Connect/Follow me on Linked In. I always follow back and am anxious to hear what you have to say. Cheers/JR