"'Old dude, has no clue' and 'living on social security,'"

[The Straight Story]

AG Alleges Vicious Telemarketing Scam
By JAMIE ROSS
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PHOENIX (CN) - Arizona telemarketers defrauded nearly 5,000 people, many of them elderly, of $6.3 million in a scam that used victims' credit-card limits to determine how much to charge them for setting up a "web mall" from which they allegedly would get commissions, the Arizona attorney general says. Telemarketers exchanged notes on their victims such as "'Old dude, has no clue' and 'living on social security,'" according to the complaint.

Four Arizona LLCs and 11 Arizonans who live in or around Phoenix are the defendants. Christopher Lewallen and James Lewallen Jr. are the lead individual defendants. They ran defendants Solid Ad Solutions, Solid Tech Solutions, Freedom Billing, and E-Web Financial.

E-Web Financial and Freedom Billing "made illegal telemarketing calls to consumers offering them a home-based business opportunity" through setting up an Internet "web-mall," Attorney General Tom Horne says in Maricopa County Court.

The defendants promised their victims "a business coaching program that would show them how to successfully operate their business," and promised to "buy the program back at the end of one year 'if for some crazy reason you don't make your investment back,'" according to the complaint.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/11/16/41488.htm

[Scuba]

1. Know what's really weird? Republicans think these telemarketers are over-regulated. n/t

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

2. I would hate to work as a telemarketer

I've seen a dramatic rise in calls to my house in recent months, from credit card companies to people who want to fix my roof. I try to treat them with polite respect as I categorically tell them 'no'. I think to myself that I would hate to be in a spot where this is the only job I can find. I hate being solicited for sales and I would hate having to try to sell something even more.