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CBSNews.com
Lottery
Scam Targets Elderly
September 26, 2004
-- Every year, one out of three adults in the United States
gets a call from a con man, and the very best in the business
of telemarketing fraud are known in the con game as "the
closers."
They are the smooth, persuasive talkers who convince people
to send them millions of dollars based on a phone conversation.
Recently, the most talented closers in the business have been
working something called the Canadian lottery scam, one of
the largest, most successful cons ever.
Authorities believe variations of it have been used to swindle
American victims - most of them retirees and widows - out
of as much as $5 billion.
This is how it works. You get a call from someone saying you
just won a huge amount of money in a Canadian sweepstakes,
and the money will be delivered just as soon as the taxes
are paid on the winnings.
Sound pretty good? Well, as Correspondent Steve Kroft reports,
it sounds even better when you hear it from the closer.
William Foley (not his real name) made his living ripping
off the elderly. He told people he was a lawyer, but he's
actually a former bouncer at a strip club.
60 Minutes met him in Montreal, Ground Zero for the Canadian
lottery scam because of the light sentences handed out for
telemarketing fraud in Canada. But Foley had just been arrested
and extradited to the United States, where he pleaded guilty
to defrauding people in 24 states.
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