Task Force Warns Seniors of Phone Scams

ANAHEIM — One senior citizen lost more than $75,000 to a smooth telephone marketer who convinced him to send cash for gifts he never received. Others paid as much as $7,500 apiece for the same purpose.

“As a senior citizen, you are vulnerable,” said Delores Crupnick, 74, of Anaheim.

On Thursday, she and more than 100 of her peers got a chance to fight back. Participating in a two-day “reverse boiler room” operation organized by a county task force, they began calling as many as 2,000 Orange County senior citizens believed to have been targeted for fraud. The purpose was to warn them against pleasant but unscrupulous con artists and to begin getting the goods on telemarketing criminals.

“Orange County has the dubious distinction of being the capital for telemarketing fraud in the nation,” said Robert Raskin Jr., a federal prosecutor who helped organize the project. “This is a crime that causes great financial and emotional pain--we’re here to attack the problem.”

The problem has been attacked aggressively since January, when the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office joined with the American Assn. of Retired Persons to form the County of Orange Boiler Room Apprehension Task Force. Named after the rooms where telemarketing firms’ solicitors work, the task force was charged with going after the estimated 400 telemarketing businesses operating illegally in Orange County.

Raskin said that as a result of task force work, 11 people have been arrested, including two involved in the phony gift promotions. More than $345,000 has been seized from illegal telemarketing operations. Another $100,000 has been intercepted en route to phony marketers and returned to its owners. And 37 Orange County boiler rooms, Raskin said, are under investigation.

“There are many more raids on the horizon,” the prosecutor said. “There will be many more arrests and convictions.”

To that end, the task force organized this week’s boiler room project. Armed with lists of intended victims seized from illegal telemarketers, the senior citizens are calling them from three rooms at a Pacific Bell conference center in Anaheim.

What they’re telling them is to beware of anyone who pressures them over the phone to send money fast, said Lucia Barker of Corona del Mar.

“Seniors have enough to cope with without having to cope with fraudulent telemarketing,” Barker, 68, said.

Crupnick said she volunteered because of an experience of her own. “I got a call from a very nice young man selling life and health insurance,” she recalled. Before she knew it, Crupnick had given his associate her credit card number and signed up for a policy costing about $20 a month that was automatically charged to her. The policy never arrived. When she called to cancel the policy, all she reached was an answering service that took messages that were never returned.

“I got mad and threatened to call the FBI,” she said. “That was it--[the billing] stopped. It was nothing but a scam.”

By late Thursday, Raskin said, the calls from Anaheim had netted several tips regarding possible fraudulent marketers that task force members plan to pursue.