|
Going after the telescammers >> A Toronto law firm tries to crack down on Montreal's telemarketing-fraud haven
by JACQUIE CHARLTON
"Sometimes I'm a little afraid they'll come out after me," says a 75-year-old B.C. victim who prefers to remain anonymous. "One time one fellow said, 'We know exactly where you live.'" With cheque after cheque, she sent Montreal telemarketers a total of $18,222.69--her life savings--when they called to tell her she had won a diamond bracelet, a car and fabulous sums of cash and just needed "administration fees" to send them to her. "They've phoned me so often," she says. "I've got no money left." The telemarketers sent her a calculator, a day planner, a ceramic jewelry box, 79 cheap pen-and-pencil sets, and not a cent or molecule of the prizes she'd been told she'd won. During one telephone conversation, she told the telemarketer she wasn't sending any more money. The telemarketer angrily replied that she had no principles and had been raised by animals. She is one of 31 plaintiffs in a multi-plaintiff action being brought against 63 alleged telemarketers and numbered companies by the Paulos Luizos law firm in Toronto. Collectively described as "The Syndicate," the companies, almost all Montreal-based, go by names like Omega Group, Delta International, Lighthouse Direct and Impact Marketing Group. Though Luizos says he passes on his information about telemarketers to the police, he adds, "Typically in the past there's been a lack of resources to fight white collar crimes." One Montreal telemarketing firm was recently convicted and ordered to pay a $1 million fine but, for the most part, Luizos says, "The few times telemarketers have been prosecuted they've received little more than a rap on the wrist." Luizos's firm is asking that the telemarketers pay damages in the amount of $150,000 to each plaintiff, with additional damages of $200,000 for emotional distress, inconvenience and consequential economic hardship. It is also asking for an order directing that the telemarketers fund a charitable organization for the elderly in the amount of $100,000. The Mirror contacted some of the alleged telemarketers named in the lawsuit, but all those who answered the phone denied they were involved in telemarketing fraud. One man who answered the phone at an address where three of the alleged telemarketers were said to live told the Mirror Luizos was "in big trouble" and was "falsely doing terrible things." The individual also warned that the Mirror (which he said he recognized as the paper "with all those ads in the back") could be an accessory to a lawsuit if it mentioned the alleged telemarketers' names in an article. "I just want to protect you," he said. "I hope you guys have a lot of money for lawsuits." Already, two of the defendants, Joseph and George Warash, have launched a motion to dismiss the Luizos's action against them, claiming that there is no reasonable cause for it and that the action is "frivolous or vexatious." |
Telemarketing fraud hurts in a particularly demeaning way. Not only do you feel ripped off but, unlike the aftermath of other crimes, you feel stupid as well. Just talk to the elderly victims of telemarketing crimes in small towns across Canada. "I was stupid," they say when you ask them how they feel. They also feel hollowed out, angry and excruciatingly paranoid about talking to any stranger who calls, especially a stranger from Montreal, the capital of telemarketing fraud in Canada.