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Information about Reloading Scam

Reloading is a form of fraud, whereby a victim of one scam is repeatedly approached with more aggressive con artists, often until "sucked dry". This form of fraud is especially hurtful for senior people, because they are more susceptible to pressure after the first losses, partly because of hopes to recover, partly being psychologically unable to say "no" to a con man in time.

This form is widespread because people who become victims of, for example, a telemarketing fraud, often are placed on a sucker list. Sucker lists, which include names, addresses, phone numbers, and other information, are created, bought, and sold by some fraudulent telemarketers. They are considered invaluable because dishonest promoters know that consumers who have been tricked once are likely to be tricked again.

How the scam works

Double scammers, known as reloaders, use several methods to repeatedly victimize consumers. For example, if they have lost money to a fraudulent telemarketing scheme, they may get a call from someone claiming to work for a government agency, private company, or consumer organization that could recover their lost money, product, or prize—for a fee. The catch is that the second caller is often as phony as the first, and may even work for the company that took their money in the first place. If they pay the recovery fee, they have been double-scammed.

Some local government agencies and consumer organizations do provide help to consumers who have lost money to fraudulent promoters. Fortunately, there's a way to tell whether the caller offering help is legitimate: If they ask you to pay a fee or if they guarantee to get your money back, it is fraud.

Buyers of worthless shares of stock are sometimes approached with schemes to revive the original bankrupt companies. All the victim needs to do to save his original investment is to contribute so much per share. This throwing good money after bad appeals to those reluctant to admit that they made a bad investment.

Another reloading scam uses prize incentives to convince a person to continue buying merchandise. If they buy, they may get a second call claiming they are eligible to win a more valuable prize. The second caller makes them think that buying more merchandise increases their chances of winning. If they take the bait, they may be called yet again with the same sales pitch. The only difference is that the caller now claims that they are a "grand prize" finalist and, if they buy even more, they could win the "grand prize."

Fraudulent promoters involved in reloading scams want payment as quickly as possible—usually by credit card or a cheque delivered to them by courier. Often, it takes at least several weeks to receive products and prizes. When they do arrive, buyers often find that they have overpaid for shoddy goods, and that they did not win the "grand prize" at all. Unfortunately, their credit card has long since been charged or their cheque cashed.

Protection

In the USA

The Federal Trade Commission and other agencies recommend to beware of people who claim to work for companies, consumer organizations, or government agencies that recover money for a fee. Legitimate organizations, such as national, state, and local consumer enforcement agencies and non-profit organizations, like the National Fraud Information Center (NFIC) or Call For Action (CFA), do not charge for their services or guarantee results. One must also be wary of promoters who contact you several times and urge you to buy more merchandise to increase your chances of winning valuable prizes. A number of other advices based on common sense may be found.

In the UK

The Office of Fair Trading(OFT) are the main protectors of consumer issues. People in the UK are protected by the Telephone Preference Service(TPS), if they are subscribed to it, they should not be called by companies. If you are called and are on the TPS, you know that the company calling is not legit.

References

External links

Criminal law
Part of the common law series
Elements of crimes
Actus reus  · Causation  · Concurrence
Mens rea  · Intention (general)
Intention in English law  · Recklessness
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confidence trick or confidence game, also known as a con, scam, swindle, grift, bunko or flim flam, is an attempt to swindle a person or persons (known as the "mark") which involves gaining his or her confidence.
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Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson uses the telephone to solicit prospective customers to buy products or services. Telemarketing can also include recorded sales pitches programmed to be played over the phone via automatic dialing.
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A sucker list is a list of persons who have previously been successfully solicited for something.

The major areas of "sucker lists" are solicitation of donations and fraud.
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Federal Trade Commission

Official seal
Agency overview
Formed September 26, 1914
Preceding Agency Bureau of Corporations

Jurisdiction Federal government of the United States
Headquarters Washington, D.
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Call For Action was the name given to telephone "help lines" maintained by many radio stations in the United States, especially in the 1960s and 1970s.

The lines served a kind of ombudsman or "public service" function; callers would contact the station via a special "hot
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The Office of Fair Trading or OFT is a non-ministerial government department of the United Kingdom, established by the Fair Trading Act 1973, which enforces both consumer protection and competition law, acting as the UK's economic regulator.
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The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is a UK opt-out telephone list that is intended to prevent telemarketing calls to those who do not wish to receive them. The administration of the list is performed on behalf of Ofcom by the British direct marketing industry, in a similar way
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United States of America

This article is part of the series:
Politics and government of
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Federal government
Constitution
Taxation

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Congress
Senate
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Federal Trade Commission

Official seal
Agency overview
Formed September 26, 1914
Preceding Agency Bureau of Corporations

Jurisdiction Federal government of the United States
Headquarters Washington, D.
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Les Henderson is a Canadian consumer fraud investigating author and creator of consumer-fraud awareness site Crimes Of Persuasion (COP)[1].

Les Henderson wrote two books, "Crimes Of Persuasion" and "Under Investigation".
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confidence trick or confidence game, also known as a con, scam, swindle, grift, bunko or flim flam, is an attempt to swindle a person or persons (known as the "mark") which involves gaining his or her confidence.
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confidence trick or confidence game, also known as a con, scam, swindle, grift, bunko or flim flam, is an attempt to swindle a person or persons (known as the "mark") which involves gaining his or her confidence.
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The victim of a confidence game or magic trick is often called the mark, or the vic. This is an underground slang term that evolved amongst swindlers because the intended victim was said to be "marked" for the sting.
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A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services or a political group, who pretends no association to the seller/group and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer.
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A sucker list is a list of persons who have previously been successfully solicited for something.

The major areas of "sucker lists" are solicitation of donations and fraud.
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advance fee fraud is a confidence trick in which the target is persuaded to advance relatively small sums of money in the hope of realizing a much larger gain. Among the variations on this type of scam are the Nigerian Letter (or 419 fraud) and "The Spanish Prisoner.
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The badger game is an extortion scheme, often perpetrated on married men, in which the victim or "mark" is tricked into a compromising position to make him vulnerable to blackmail.

There are two competing explanations for the origin of the term badger game.
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The black money scam, sometimes also known as the 'wash wash scam', is a scam where con artists attempt to fraudulently obtain money from a victim by persuading him or her that piles of banknote-sized paper in a trunk or a safe is really money which has been dyed black (e.g.
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The bogus escrow scam is a straightforward confidence trick in which a scammer operates a bogus escrow service.

Escrow services are intended to ensure security by acting as a middle-man in transactions where the two parties do not trust each other.
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A clip joint is an establishment, usually a strip club or entertainment bar, typically one claiming to offer adult entertainment, in which customers are tricked into paying money and receive poor, or no, goods or services in return.
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The Drop Swindle was a con game commonly used during the 19th and 20th centuries. Employing a variety of techniques the con usually consists of the "dropper", who purposely drops a wallet containing counterfeit money near a potential victim.
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The Embarrassing Cheque is a confidence trick which may also be an urban legend.

The scam was supposedly performed by a company selling pornography or other sex aids and trading under a highly explicit name (e.g., "The Anal Sex And Fetish Pornography Company").
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Employment scams, also know as job scams, are a form of advance fee fraud scamming where certain unscrupulous persons posing as recruiters and/or employers offer attractive employment opportunities which require the job seeker to pay them money in advance, usually under the
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For other uses, see Hustle and Hustler (disambiguation).
Hustling is the deceptive act of disguising one's skill in a sport or game with the intent of luring someone of probably lesser skill into gambling (or gambling for higher than current stakes) with
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The penny-and-dime scam is a scam typically targeted at banks and large retail stores. The con will wrap pennies into a dime-roll wrapper and try to exchange it. Sometimes the con will also exchange other legitimate rolls of coins at the same time to allow himself to make the
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Pig-in-a-poke is an idiom that refers to a confidence trick originating in the Late Middle Ages, when meat was scarce, but apparently rats and cats were not.

The scheme entailed the sale of a "suckling pig", in a "poke" (bag).
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shell game (also known as Thimblerig, Three shells and a pea, the old army game) is portrayed as a gambling game, but in reality, when a wager for money is made, it is an illegal confidence trick used to perpetrate fraud.
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The "Slave Reparations Act" (also called the Slavery Reparation Tax Credit, Black Tax Credit or Black Inheritance Tax Refund) is a tax fraud related to the concept of reparations for slavery.
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For film based on this term, see .


The Spanish Prisoner is a confidence trick dating back to 1588. In its original form, the confidence artist (con-man) tells his victim (the mark
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