Telemarketing Fraud

We all were able to enjoy Thanksgiving, at least to the extent we did, without interruption from telemarketers because the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) established the National Do Not Call Registry for consumers who do not wish to receive certain telemarketing calls. Generally speaking, the TSR prohibits calling consumers who have signed up for the registry.

A federal district court in Chicago has shut down an international robocall ring that allegedly conned consumers out of $995 each with false promises that it would reduce their credit card interest rates, but provided little or nothing in return. 

Seven individuals, all residents of Israel, have been extradited to the U.S. on charges relating to an alleged lottery telemarketing fraud scheme through which the federal government says they stole approximately $2 million from elderly victims in the U.S. between 2007 and September 2008. This is the largest number of Israeli citizens ever extradited to a foreign country in a single case. 

One of the telemarketers who blasted U.S. consumers with millions of auto “warranty” robocalls last year will pay approximately $2.3 million, give up his Mercedes, and be barred from telemarketing, under a settlement he has reached with the Federal Trade Commission. 

Henry Anekwu, a resident of Vancouver, British Columbia, has been sentenced to 108 months in federal prison for operating a fraudulent lottery scheme that targeted dozens of elderly Americans victims, who lost at least $600,000. Anekwu also was ordered to pay $510,840 in restitution to his victims. 

Bank of America has agreed to pay the state of Missouri $195,000 to settle allegations that it violated Missouri's telemarketing and telephone solicitation laws. 

The operators of a New Jersey-based telemarketing scheme will pay a record $18.8 million and leave the charitable donation business to settle charges that they violated a Federal Trade Commission order by misleading consumers to believe that they were donating directly to legitimate charities serving police, firefighters, and veterans, when, according to the government, only a small slice of the donations actually went to these charities. 

In an effort to be “fair and balanced,” we’d like to point you to an article in Newsday today with some responses to the report we covered the other day by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo criticizing excessive fees taken by for-profit telemarketers who raise money for non-profit charities.

“Pennies For Charity”? That’s what this year’s annual report on charities fundraising from New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo says. His bottom line: on average, professional, for-profit telemarketers keep over 60 percent of the money they raise. And some charities across the state received even less. 

Can a “Pre-Approved” “Platinum-Level” credit card not be worth with the metal it’s made with? Yes, if a complaint filed today by the Federal Trade Commission has validity.