Telemarketing fraud is when people call you up and act like they’re from a professional company or agency and tell you you’ve won some sort of amazing trip or prize. They ask you things like your address and credit card information just so they could have it and eventually rob you.

One common type of telemarketing scam is called an advanced fee scam. An advanced fee scam occurs when a victim receives encouragement to advance large sums of money with the hope of receiving a large rate of return on those initial advancements. One such notorious scam is the Nigerian Letter scam in which the criminal lures the victim into giving out credit card information to “help purchase travel tickets” for a “Nigerian prince” to escape persecution and come to America. The scam promises to give a large percentage of the prince’s fortune to the victim in exchange for the travel help. The criminal then uses the credit card information to make unauthorized purchases and the victim never sees a dime. Criminals also frequently use pyramid schemes over the phone. A pyramid scheme requires the victim to pay an initial sum of money and is promised in return to receive sums of money from a number of different people that will exponentially increase the initial investment. While those that join the scheme in the beginning may profit, those at the bottom of the scheme who cannot find any followers will receive no such return. Fraudulent telemarketers also pose often as calling on behalf of charities. They then ask for the victim to make a donation to the charity over the phone. The criminal then takes the credit card information and makes unauthorized purchases with it Overpayment telemarketing schemes involve using the names of legitimate businesses, sending a fake check to the victim, and telling the victim that they were overly paid for an online sale, perhaps on a site like eBay. Then, over the phone, the criminal asks the victim to wire back the extra money, which the criminal then takes. The victim cannot cash the fake check and cannot recover the wired money.

One of the most important of these cases was publicly unveiled 15 on December 7, Dubbed Operation Senior Sentinel, it was as novel as it was successful. Successful, because it ultimately resulted in some 1,200 arrests and hundreds of convictions across the nation. And novel, because for the first time, it put victims themselves in an undercover role to help current and retired FBI agents catch fraudsters.

Telemarketers get your info by scamming you into saying you’ve won a prize or a vacation and get your address and credit card info. When on the phone be secure with your information. Look up the company on the internet and ask all the hard questions to the phone person to make sure it’s a legit company.

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