Massive Telemarketing Scam Busted

Thanks in part to the efforts of those brave men in red, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, evildoers in the form of sham telemarketers have been scooped up by an international sting operation and brought to swift justice.

Well, 15-months worth of swift.

According to a story running in the Toronto Star, a year and a half operation involving an international cadre of law enforcement agents finally brought down one of the largest mass marketing frauds in law enforcement history.

The baddies? Two Ontario telemarketing companies, as well as some individual defendants, who used telemarketing, the Internet, and mass mailings to prey upon the elderly, recent immigrants, and beleaguered American businesses, encouraging them to buy useless business directories.

Using an intricate web of recorded phone calls and sham purchase orders, Datacom Marketing Inc., or Datacom Direct Inc. — two of the Ontario companies caught in the sting operation — would harass targeted “patsies” until they paid for business directories they never paid for, or they would refer these confused non-payers to collection agencies.

Some 2.8 million individuals were conned out of almost $1.8 billion in the United States alone.

You can read more about this story at Massive Telemarketing Scam Busted.