Physics 3333 / Telemarketing

Telemarketing

The U.S. Attorney General gave a speech to the Cross Border Crime Forum in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada on June 20, 2001. In that speech he noted that "In 1997, the United-States Canada Working Group on Telemarketing Fraud found that telemarketing fraud accounts for as much as 10 percent of the total volume of telemarketing." That was in 1997. That percentage is almost certainly larger now.

In 2003 PSEPC (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada) issued a report to the U.S. Attorney General and the Canadian Solicitor General in which they noted that "Cross-border telemarketing fraud remains one of the most pervasive forms of white-collar crime in Canada and the United States. The PhoneBusters National Call Centre estimates that on any given day, there are 500 to 1,000 criminal telemarketing boiler ro Those scammers are just waiting to nab you.

Need more? Try this from the Texas Attorney General.

Here, for your use, is a table of links to the Federal trade Commission web site's section on telemarketing frauds. READ THEM.



there's also an excellent site by the U.S. Department of Justice.

When it comes to telemarketing, the first thing you must do is protect yourself. You do not want to be the victim of a telemarketing scam. We have, so far, been able to come up with only one way to be sure of protecting yourself from scams. That way is unfair to legitimate telemarketers but is the safest thing for you; it is to assume up front that ALL telemarketers are scammers and refuse to do business with any of them. Yes, you might turn down some legtimate callers, but you won't get scammed.

Remember - you have absolutely no obligation to the telemarketer. They are calling you, trying to get you to part with some cash. You owe them nothing!

See fraud.org's resource on telemarketing scam statistics. Very interesting.