AmeriPOS - Point of Sale Terminals - Unregistered Securities
Two more criminal convictions and restitution orders were obtained by the U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of Florida and Postal Inspector in Charge, United States Postal Inspection Service in the AmeriPOS scam.
AmeriPos was a Florida Company, which "falsely claimed that a business opportunity purchaser, known as a "distributor," would earn substantial profits when members of the public purchased products, such as pre-paid debit cards, pre-paid phone cards, and pre-paid Internet services, from the distributor's P.O.S. terminals. Borzillo, Cohen, and others fraudulently induced over 1,500 consumers to invest a total of approximately $20 million in AmeriP.O.S."
The AmeriPOS system was similar to Cashlinks, another Florida business opporuntities scam prosecuted by the SEC. The basic idea is the same: offer investors a "portfolio" of ATM and Point of Sale Terminals and "guarantee" a return of 18% or higher.
One of the culprits in AmeriPOS, a Michael Borzillo, falsely represented himself as a successful AmeriPOS distributor, when in fact he was part of the company. This is a common feature of a business opportunties scam, fake references from indidviduals who are shills. Again, why does this work?
The use of fake references to promote a business opportunity scam works by invoking the same mechanism that canned laughter does. Nobody thinks that the introduction of canned laughter in a sitcom makes the show funnier, in fact it is down right annoying. However, the odd thing is that canned laughter primes the watcher to laugh more often! It isn't funnier, but you are laughing more.
A reference does the same thing. You don't check out the reference, you might not even believe the reference. But the apparent existence of a "wealthy distributor" primes you to act and purchase the "investment". Even an unchecked reference will be used a stand-in for a reputation check.
