How Florida Regulators Deal with Telemarketing Fraud
Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Charles H. Bronson has announced the arrest of a Pinellas County man for running an unregistered telemarketing operation.
Arrested by Bronson’s Office of Agricultural Law Enforcement (OALE) on charges of telemarketing without a license and hiring unregistered sales people, both third-degree felonies, was Scott Andrew Friedman, 37, of St. Petersburg.According to OALE, Friedman, the owner and president of Premier Timeshare Vacations Inc. which is located at 14 18th Street South, St. Petersburg, was operating an unregistered telemarketing business. The business contracted with consumers to advertise their time shares for sale.
On July 24, investigators with the Division of Consumer Services and OALE conducted a regulatory inspection and found the business was operating without being registered with the department. The Division of Consumer Services issued a cease and desist order, directing Friedman to stop telemarketing operations until he properly registered the business with the department.
Earlier this week, investigators with the Division of Consumer Services and OALE conducted a follow up inspection and determined that the business was conducting telemarketing activities in violation of the cease and desist order, and employing unregistered sales people. That led to Friedman’s arrest.
I think that there is a lot to this type of approach. Register or go directly to jail. Do not pass go, don't collect $200, go directly to jail.
However, this method of dealing with telemarketing fraud does have an unintended consequence: the registered telemarketers will be better capitalized and more sophisticated than they would have been without this law.
I wonder how the regulators manage or even investigate this tradeoff?
Comments
Regarding Friedman - we were one of his victums. We registered a fraud alert on him with American Express. The result - Friedman won. Can you believe it? We have proof he wasn't registered on the date his salesperson called yet we suffer and he wins. I won't let this go. I want my money back. I don't understand American Express - how can a contract be legal if he wasn't suppose to call us in the first place? He also broke the "DO NOT CALL" in our state and under the federal law. Hmmm.
Posted by: Wagner | January 24, 2008 3:16 PM