Community Operations
Consumer Affairs Tip Sheets
Telemarketing
Millions of consumers have received postcards, telegrams, unsolicited mail and with the boom of the Internet, unsolicited e-mail in a fast-growing sweepstakes con that gives all telemarketers a bad name. They often start with a hook line such as "Mr. Smith will definitely receive a two-week, all expenses trip to London". Winners are instructed to call for information on how to collect their prizes. But when they do, they are informed that in order to "'qualify" they must join an expensive travel club and pay "handling fees", or they must buy an additional "companion" ticket at an inflated price. After all the extra charges these "free" trips cost more than if you had booked them with a travel agent.
Some scam artists pitch legitimate sounding items over the phone at reasonable sounding prices, then send products that bear little resemblance to the descriptions. "Car Phone" may turn out to be a cheap phone in the shape of a car, a "piano" ordered may fit in the palm of your hand and a "Home Stereo Entertainment System" turns out to be a tiny radio.
Most telemarketing crooks insist on credit card numbers. The reason is simple: they can cash in the vouchers before the consumer can think it over. Also, they hold onto your number and charge you over and over. You may not read your statements carefully. Would you notice a $7.50 or $15.00 charge that shows up a couple of times over a four month period? Even if you do notice them, by that time the con artist/salesman has probably long since disappeared, often without ever having shipped a product.
Fraudulent telephone sales operators are hard to catch because they keep operations small. The typical setup is the infamous "boiler room" in which a dozen employees reading from prepared scripts work the phones, contacting hundreds of potential victims a day. Consumers who call back are told that "the sales representative is in a meeting right now " and never receive a return call. Once you have been stung by one of these operators you may receive similar calls, since boiler rooms sell what is commonly called "sucker lists" to one another.
So far few laws stand in the way of these types of scams, partly because these kinds of sales were not anticipated when the current laws were written.
If you are contacted by a telemarketer and wish to see if the offer is legitimate, or if you have provided money to a telemarketer, please contact:
Project Phonebusters
Box 686
North Bay, ON P1B 3B9
1-888-495-8501 (Toll Free) 705-494-4008 (Facsimile)
E-mail: Phonebusters@efni.com
For more information, call collect or e-mail our Consumer Affairs Officer at MACA headquarters in Yellowknife at: (867) 873-7125.