scam artist Show Segment
Q. John T. That’s not your name but you have written a book to help we seniors understand the schemes and scams that are going to come into our home. Tell us about how you got started in this.
A. To start with, I stopped drinking alcohol. You see I drank Jack Daniels every day for about ten years. That numbed my feeling so I had no conscience. And that allowed me to scam people. So when I stopped drinking, all of a sudden I had this conscience and the next thing you know, I’m running a program of life and I’m supposed to make amends to people I’ve harmed so now I contacted different agencies, told them I’m available to help you. In 1989 Doug Shavell at the Washington State Attorney General’s office contacted me and we put together the Washington State Stop Fraud Program.
Q. Let me interrupt just a minute please. You’re talking about this but really you were a con artist, right? When you were drinking?
A. Yes.
Q. And you were using these scams and schemes yourself.
A. Right. That’s how I know them so well.
Q. All right. I’m sorry. Please continue.
A. Ok. So we established the Washington State Stop Fraud Program which has been copied by many states. As a matter of fact, Mr. Hubert Humphries who is the Attorney General in the state of Minnesota has taken on the cause and the program. Then it’s just elevated from there. Doug and I decided the best way that we could reach the most number of people, because that’s our goal is to educate as many people as possible, would be to write a book, find some corporate, non-profit and state agencies who would participate in a stop fraud coalition as a result, I’m able to give free seminars between May 13th and June 20th in the state of California from Sacremento through San Diego. Each attendee also receives a free copy of the book.
Q. I have a copy of your book and it scares the heck out of me.
A. It should.
Q. I’m reading the ABC’s of fraud and some of these I know are happening. I know that they have, here’s one that says, “This week special rug cleaner.” Now which ones of us haven’t received that kind of a call. Why is it a scam?
A. It’s a scam because they make you think they’re going to come in and do your rug for twenty-nine or thirty-nine dollars, then they come in and they are trained, now bare in mind this is beyond just people being victimized because they have a victim mentality. Salespeople today are so sharp that there are psychological maneuvers you can use that very few people even know about or can find. So the carpet, rug cleaner salesman comes in and that twenty-nine dollar, two bedrooms and a hallway is all of a sudden three hundred and some odd dollars.
Q. But you do not have to let them do it.
A. No you don’t.
Q. Even after they come into your home.
A. Right.
Q. And you’re telling us get it up front first.
A. I say the best thing to do when getting any type of repairs or cleaning is to go through a company that is licensed, that is bonded, that is in the yellow pages, and that can provide you with referrals.
Q. I noted in your book that you said that some of these you designed yourself. These are your own personal scams. Which one is your favorite?
A. Well actually my favorite was when I gave away space shuttle tickets for the first civilian space shuttle launching. That was my favorite one. The one that’s the most popular....
Q. For how much?
A. Oh anywhere from four hundred to fourteen hundred dollars. It was quite a deal. The one that’s the most popular is called the one of four prize presentation. Now, they’ve changed it to one of five just to make it different but it specifiaclly goes: “Hello Joyce, this is Jerry Daniels with Scamco Redemption Company. Congratulations. You’re guaranteed one of the four following prizes. First prize is a brand new Cadillac Seville or forty thousand dollars in cash. Which one would you like Joyce, the new car or the forty thousand dollars.?”
Q. Money.
A. Oh you betcha you and me both. I wish I could get into this. The second prize is twenty thousand dollars cash. The third prize is a beautiful one carat diamond necklace form Tiffany’s and fourth prize is a two thousand dollar shopping spree at the mall of your choice. Congratulations Joyce, how does it feel to be a winner?
Q. Gee. I think it’s marvelous. What do I have to do to get it?
A. That’s the trick. What they are then doing is telling you they can get around gift taxes or something like that and all you have to do is buy a two year supply of makeup for six hundred dollars or buy four bottles of cleaning fluid which they’ll charge you twelve hundred dollars, or vitamins. They’ll tell you a two year supply of vitamins which are going to cost you six hundred dollars that you could probably go down to the hardware, ok, cut.
A. And those vitamins that they want to charge you six hundred dollars for, you can go down and buy at a drugstore for maybe 50 dollars for a couple years supply.
Q. When do I get my prize please?
A. All you have to do is fill out your prize redemption certificate and mail it to me Joyce and you’re prize will be in the mail.
Q. Just sign my name. That’s all. How do you make any money out of that?
A. Well quite simply there’s so many ways to make money. You can get somebody to give you their credit card number and then bill them and I’ll tell you one scam that is dastardly. One scam that is absolutely unthinkable. It’s the Alzheimer’s scam. What people do is they are actually able to purchase lists of seniors over the age of 70.
Q. Who have Alzheimer’s?
A. Sometimes if they can get a contact, you know, in a hospital or something like that, normally the list is just of people who are over 70 or over 80. Then what they will do is they will call and they’ve got a series of questions. Then they’ll call back the next day and they will ascertain whether or not you have Alzheimer’s. If you have Alzheimer’s, they’ll call you back that next week and they will, they will ask you, “Where’s that ten thousand dollars you said you were sending in on that investment? You know I held if for you.” Now what happens, what we discovered.....
Q. And they hadn’t even mentioned it?
A. Right. What we’ve discovered is that the older people with Alzheimer’s are embarrassed. Ok. You know that. And, you know, they’re embarrassed if they forget things and things like that and so what happens is they’ll send the money in thinking that they had spoken with the person and they never had.
Q. This is sad, right. It’s very sad. But what can we do about it?
A. Well quite simply, never buy anything over the telephone unless you’re shopping by catalog which I do myself and obviously...
Q. Reputable catalogs.
A. Exactly. Exactly. Reputable catalogs. Just remember there’s no such thing as a free lunch and please, if you’re lonely, if you’re depressed, there are places you can go for help and that’s our most vulnerable victim profile is an older woman in her 60’s, 70’s and 80’s normally a widow who is lonely and depressed. Now I know you can call such organizations such as the California Self Help Center which their number is 800-222-LINK and they have a listing of 4200 different self help groups in the state of California where seniors can go and meet other people who are in the same situation.
Q. But isn’t it a law that all purchases must have at least two days you can cancel?
A. Laws are only as good as they are enforced. We have numerous laws to protect us from this fraud except they are not being enforced. What’s happening here and I’ll give you an example: Federal sentencing guidelines call if I were to out and set up a scam, let’s say I went out and set up a wireless cable investment scam and I took 800 thousand dollars from people. The U.S. Attorney is probably going to turn down the case because Federal Sentencing Guidelines would call for me getting probation. I’d have to steal at least a million dollars and then I would go for 12 to 18 months in Club Fed.
Q. You are, were asked when you were convicted I guess, to do community service like this. Is that over with now? Are you on your own?
A. Oh yes. I’ve been on my own for a few years.
Q. Marvelous. Marvelous. I ask the other day, are you happier?
A. I’m much happier.
Q. Why?
A. Because I can sleep at night. I have my feelings back. I don’t have to hide behind the alcohol. My life is beyond my wildest dreams right now.
Q. I notice that in your book you have the top ten do’s and don’ts of personal safety, home security. Which are the most important of those? My feeling is please don’t give out your social security number or your credit card number.
A. I’ll agree with that. I will say though that with the credit card companies and I found especially Citibank Visa, what they do is they’ve got this privacy protection to where they will not release your name address or phone number. The first thing I would suggest to people to do is to write a letter to every one of your credit cards, to every one of your loans and specifically tell them that under the telemarketing act you do not want your name, address or phone number released to anyone. You’d be very surprised Joyce how many of these corporations sell people’s names left and right.
Q. I know states that sell drivers license lists. The state itself is participating.
A. Well the state itself is participating much more than that. The state is responsible for helping to create the sweepstakes mentality. You can win a million dollars in the lottery, the lottery, the lottery, right. So what happens, now everybody thinks they can win and they get a telephone call from a con artist, it all works together.
Q. It has been in our area just recently these telephones, you’ve won a prize because it was written up in our local newspaper. Beware of, these are real scams.
A. Oh they sure are. They are responsible, telemarketing fraud alone is responsible for stealing over 40 billion dollars a year.
Q. We spoke to a detective here in Los Angeles whose job is to protect we older folks from these very scams which of course you have to recognize it’s a scam and go and report it. Are the laws strict enough.
A. The laws are strict enough. Let me tell you the problem. It’s my understanding in Los Angeles County there’s only two detectives for different fraud type of cases and the Los Angeles District Attorney announced three weeks ago the Los Angeles County would no longer be prosecuting cases of fraud because of the fact that they don’t have enough money.
Q. That’s going to happen in every state and as usual, the vulnerable and the elderly get the short end of the stick.
A. That’s right, and you know it’s really a shame Joyce because one of the reasons that people in their 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s are vulnerable to this, is because you grew up in an age where honesty and integrity were respected as American values.
Q. It was interesting to note in your book you had a little scam called “Pave your driveway” and good heavens, that’s been around for hundreds of years. Ma Baker used that.
A. Oh yeah.
Q. Bring a little black water and put it on your driveway.
A. These don’t go away. I’m sure there was some caveman con artist. What our goal is to do is to teach people the different scams, the different psychologies behind the scams and that way if a new one comes up, they won’t be caught victim.
Q. I wanted to ask you about new ones. You have listed a great many in your book but if a person suspects a new one, can they call you and say, “Is this really a scam?”
A. They can call the National Fraud Information Center and all the phone numbers I’m referring to are in the book. We have a resource section in the back of the book. They can call their Attorney General’s office, they can call the FBI.
Q. And when in doubt, do. Is that what you’re saying?
A. When in doubt.....
Q. Do call.
A. Do call. Do call. Now one thing I would like for people to do, ok, because we learned that the law of numbers is behind the salesman so what we need to do is slow them down. When they call you, don’t just hang up, let them talk for about a minute and then say, “Can you hang on one second? I’ve got to let the dog out.” Or, “Can you hang on one second, someone’s at the door.” And set the phone down for 20 minutes.
Q. They can’t call if they are still connected. I’ve done that. And not only that, I have enjoyed doing it. I have enjoyed saying, “Well, just a minute.” Or making them explain in detail, which most of them don’t have the details.
A. That’s right.
Q. So if you ask the right questions. Well the book I would recommend to all seniors. John, could you get a picture of the book. I would recommend this because I read it last night and part of this morning and it, other than scaring the daylights out of you that this can happen to you, you do tell me where to go for help.
A. Right. Because what happens is say people like yourself. People who are actively involved are not your typical victim. It’s your friends who are the silent victims of fraud so hopefully you can read this, you can teach your friends, you can use the resources in the back and help them.
Q. Thank you very much for sharing all of this.
A. Well thank you Joyce.
