ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 11, 1995 TAG: 9512110053
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
THE RECORDINGS would make a snake's blood boil.
Alternately wheedling and berating, a telemarketing con artist browbeats a 78-year-old woman who already has lost her life's savings of $180,000 to phone scams. If there is anything left, though, this bloodsucker wants it: She's won $50,000, and all she has to do to collect is send him $500. When she dares to express some skepticism, he bawls her out for treating him rudely. It is easy to intimidate her, to make her cry.
She doesn't have $500, she tells him. OK. He'll take $250. Or even $100. No matter how little she has, this guy wants it. No matter how much she and thousands of elderly victims like her have, he and hundreds of similarly heartless human leeches want it. All of it.
Well, the seniors are striking back, and high time. Operation Senior Sentinel, an undercover investigation of telemarketing crime by the FBI and law-enforcement agencies in 15 states (Virginia is not among them), last week announced the arrests of 277 suspects, bringing the total of arrests in the sting to 391, with more to come.
After the FBI obtained the use of phone lines from some defrauded victims, retired law officers and trained volunteers from the American Association of Retired Persons posed as victims for fraudulent phone pitches.
The conversation released Thursday was almost bearable only because listeners knew this woman was secretly recording it for use as evidence if her predator was caught and tried. Perhaps there will be some measure of justice for her - but she already had lost $180,000; whatever punishment this fellow might get, it will be a small measure, indeed.
At least there is now the prospect that he and folks like him will no longer be sure, when they are trying to strip an elderly victim of confidence, dignity and, finally, financial independence, if they are the con artist or the mark. Attorney General Janet Reno says Senior Sentinel is an ongoing operation.
Go, grannies, go!
LENGTH: Short : 42 linesby CNB