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From: julian@bongo.uucp (Julian Macassey)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Mercury Marketing Again
Message-ID: <13273@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 11 Oct 90 15:11:22 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 730, Message 4 of 9


In article <13221@accuvax.nwu.edu>, tad@ssc.UUCP (Tad Cook) writes:

	Mucho stuff about dealing with toner conmen deleted - but
worth a read.

> One guy actually stayed on the phone a whole minute and a half.  I
> joked with him that I was getting two or three calls a week like this,
> and "they always hang up on me."  I got him to promise not to hang up,
> got a first and last name, a company name, but then he had trouble
> telling me where he was calling from.  "California", he said.  "Where
> in California?", said I.  "Uh ... L.A.".  I tried to get him to give
> me an address, and he choked.  I asked again for "the actual physical
> address where you are now".

	So now you know what all the out of work actors do in LA. When
they are not working on their hair, they work in boiler rooms. I am
ashamed to say that the capital of telephone con men is LA. The
"office supplies", charities, long distance service and such stuff are
worked mostly from Los Angeles. The securities cons are worked mostly
from Newport Beach in nearby Orange County. So if it's diamonds and
oil wells, it should be Newport Beach, Irvine and Costa Mesa. If it's
ball point pens and Toner, it should be West LA, Mid Wilshire. There
are exceptions. I know of one Oil and Coins boiler room in Century
City (Adjacent to Beverly Hills), but the owner lives in Costa Mesa.

	They like to use actors for several reasons. They are usually
desperate for a temporary job so they can whizz away for auditions.
They can assume personnas - I knew one that played a devout Jew for
the Jewish community and it worked well for him.

	In the want ads in this town there are constant ads for
"telemarketing" jobs. Some claim in the ads that the locations have
windows.

	The average boiler room is a cheap location filled with
folding tables and single line phones fed with POTS business lines.
Some have Centrex. The better places put Confidencer noise cancelling
transmitters on the handsets. Some boiler rooms only handle one or two
scams, often the scam of the owner, some are renta-voice places and
play the scam that someone is hiring them for. There are many
exceptions to the above rules, I have been in some very well furnished
boiler rooms. The better places are doing something more lucrative
than copier supplies. The top of the line places make millions on oil.
diamonds, coins, precious metals, whisky futures etc.

	All of these places change their names and sometimes their
locations with great regularity. How long have these slimeballs been
operating?  Well, some of them used to sell carbon paper over the
phone.

	Having seen boiler rooms from the other side, I would say a
good rule of thumb is: Never buy anything over the phone. Never agree
to anything on the phone. The cute girl who tells you she is working
her way through college could be a 40 year old mother of three still
waiting for a good movie part.


Julian Macassey, n6are  julian@bongo.info.com  ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian
N6ARE@K6IYK (Packet Radio) n6are.ampr.org [44.16.0.81] voice (213) 653-4495