How many times a week do
salesmen call you on the phone, just as you are sitting down to
dinner? That's
telemarketing -- it's annoying, but not illegal.
Telemarketing was a term coined by telephone companies in the
mid-1970s as a way to promote sales through phone solicitation.
Con artists quickly learned that selling and promoting over
the phone offered a new variation on age-old customer swindle
schemes.
By promising cash,
cars, jewelry and other prizes, unscrupulous telemarketers have
fleeced millions of Americans out of their hard-earned savings. The
first major illegal telemarketing company, or a boiler room, was 50
States Distributors. They
began operations in the late `70s in Las Vegas, with offices
throughout the West. 50
States was eventually shut down by the FBI and the U.S. Postal
Service, but former managers and salespeople spread out across the
country and started their own scam operations.
All these schemes have one common element, whether it’s
pens, vitamins or water purifiers. Illegal telemarketers prosper by promising customers riches
and award winnings. Big
rewards that never come.
Many victims are
America's elderly who are conned out of their retirement nest egg in
exchange for cheap trinkets, worthless artwork or other nominal
prizes. The FBI
successfully infiltrated hundreds of boiler rooms across the country
in two separate national undercover operations.
In
Operation DISCONNECT, undercover agents pierced this secretive world
by posing as distributors of a computerized lead service, which
promised profits far beyond what the con men were already making.
Through this fictional computer service, the FBI was able to
get its first glimpse inside the boiler rooms of America.
Following
on the heels of DISCONNECT, Operation Senior Sentinel used retired FBI
agents and members of the American Association of Retired Persons to
pose as potential customers for boiler rooms.
These cases resulted in over 1,300 arrests across the country.
Although
many telemarketers have been shut down by these operations, new
variations on these schemes will continue to pop up across the
country.
