Over the years I’ve posted here about bogus B2B telemarketing scams. I even got contacted by a Canadian Mountie once. Looks like another kingpin is going down!
The Caffeine Marketing Blog pointed me to this news: Ontario man sentenced to more than 12 years in prison in telemarketing scam:
“Terrence Croteau, 32, of Welland, Ont., pleaded guilty in May to 20 counts of mail fraud, four counts of wire fraud and a telemarketing-conspiracy charge….
Authorities say that between 2000 and June 2004, Croteau’s employees called businesses, charities, churches, sheriff’s offices and others, offering for as much as $800 to include them in business directory listings, which ultimately were bogus.
Croteau’s employees pretended they were legitimately renewing an existing listing or said they were confirming the business’ correct address to get employees to say the word “yes” on tape.”
Sound familiar to some of you?
Sometimes it seemed as if the government doesn’t really care about these B2B scams because they are white-collar, per-incident value is low, and, of course the difficulty in hunting down the bad guys. That may still be true, its just that Croteau got greedy (the article mentions foot-high phone bills), making him an easier target.
Thank you to the US government for pinning this guy down!
i need as much info that you have on this guys. you can contact me at amanda_stjohn@live.ca thank you
i need as much info that you have on this guys. you can contact me at amanda_stjohn@live.ca thank you
NOTE: The email shown above doesn't work. My response:Unfortunately, in this case, I don't know anything more about the specifics. As a company that used to get regular calls scamming for directory listings, I was just posting to cheer for this arrest.
NOTE: The email shown above doesn't work. My response:
Unfortunately, in this case, I don't know anything more about the specifics. As a company that used to get regular calls scamming for directory listings, I was just posting to cheer for this arrest.