Rick McLean
Free Cruise Scam From Canada Hits U.S.
February 16, 2008
Rick McLean was not likely to be scammed. This deal had the writing on the wall, as one of the oldest tricks in the book. You pay money to get something you have won. But, he wondered how many others might not have heard about the old scam, with a new twist.
Really, it doesn't matter how old a scam is, there are always millions of people who are naive, or maybe just don't get out much, and are not news junkies (like me) where not much goes on the world that they don't know about. There is in fact, a sucker born every moment. Criminal minds count on it, and prey on it.
I know, I know, the term "sucker" is pretty harsh. But, I am using it from the con artists' point of view, not mine. It does seem to me, that many who fall for the con artists are seniors, who were born and raised during a time in a history most people were trustworthy. They base their trust on cosmetic values instead of intellectual values. A pretty face on a smooth talker can take away their life savings.
Let's face it. If they worked their fanny off all their lives and still didn't manage to set themselves up for retirement, due perhaps to many factors outside their control such as corporate downsizing, industries dissolved because their product or service became obsolete, fraud by their bank, broker or insurance company, old age can be anything but what they dreamed of and planned for in their youth.
These are the people who, in increasing numbers play the lottery, gamble in casinos, play bingo at church and are looking for some little lock of luck to give them a chance at something a little better than they ended up with. You can't fault them for that. While I am not pro-gambling, I do understand wanting to reach for the brass ring after being served a life full of lemons, even if the reach is with a hook on a cane.
This sets up the elderly for con artists, a well-known fact. So, when I heard about this old scam, dressed up to look new, with a free cruise included, I had no problem seeing that the elderly would be a prime target of some con artists in Canada.
Let me stop right here to make one point clear. I am not bashing Canada or Canadians nor am I saying that the root of all evil comes from north of our border. In fact, historically, the opposite is true. There are ample scams brewed right here in the homeland that are of equal or greater detriment to Americans. Americans have been bilked of $10,000 to $100,000 or MORE by people living right in their own neighborhoods and it happens everyday.
In fact, just because the address and phone are connected to Canada, doesn't mean the scammers are from Canada at all. They could be in Nigeria, Russia or Florida, all three well-known roots of enormous scams.
On the surface, this free cruise offer seemed legitimate. A letter arrives with a check from Citi Bank in the amount of $2,975. Don't focus on the amount, because these scams morph and the check received might be any amount at all, or from any bank. The letter says to deposit the check into your bank account.
Hey, free money, right? The only problem is by the time 7 to 10 days go by, your bank will be notifying you the check bounced, and will be adding a fee to your bank account to cover their handling of the transaction. Meanwhile the check you send in order to claim your lottery winnings and free cruise, has been cashed and the operation has moved onto to another front city.
McLean says the letter was from the Centre Insurance Finance Company outlining how he had won $27,875 and a Caribbean cruise. At this point, red flags should be popping up faster than they do with a hurricane swirling in the Gulf Of Mexico.
McLean, no fool, found the entire deal laughable, but since the name of the sender was the same as a personality on his local, favorite, prime time news show, he decided to contact the television station to see what was up. McLean speculates that a local personality's name was used, to add a degree of legitimacy to the offer. McLean, a white-haired man, fit the description of the target market victim profile.
When Raleigh-Durham's ABC channel 11 anchor Steve Daniels heard about the letter bearing his name, it was a given an investigation was going to take place.
Daniels discovered that the scam had been around for some time in Canada. The phone number in the letter has a 705 area code which is for Northern Ontario, Canada. That phone number, a pay-as-you-go phone with no billing information, had long ago been disconnected by Project Colt.
Project Colt is a police task force that was organized by Canadian officials, but now includes officers from Canada and the U.S. working on this particular scam. They have several hundred thousand of these letters and have intercepted over 50,000 of these letters before they crossed the border into the U.S.
While the phone number is in Ontario, the return address on the letters is in Victoria, British Columbia, thousands of miles from Northern Canada. Turns out, it's a large mall, not the corporate offices of Steve Daniels.
Both Canadian and American law enforcement say anytime you are asked to pay any kind of fee in order to get something free, something is a miss.
In this case, the letter contains a check for $2,975 but the recipient was suppose to send a check for $3000 in order to get the free cruise and lottery winnings of $27,875.
Spread the word.
