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60 Minutes Report
Canadian Lottery Scam Takes Billions from Unwary
Senior Citizens
June 13, 2005 – The CBS news show “60 Minutes”
yesterday led with “Lottery Scam Targets Elderly,” which reported the
“Canadian lottery scam” is the largest and most successful scam ever.
The telephone scam has swindled Americans – mostly retirees and widows –
out of as much as $5 billion, they report.
This is how it works, according to the “60 Minutes”
program. “You get a call from someone saying you just won a huge amount
of money in a Canadian sweepstakes, and the money will be delivered just
as soon as the taxes are paid on the winnings. Sound pretty good? Well,
as Correspondent Steve Kroft reports, it sounds even better when you
hear it from the closer. “
The program featured a man falsely using the name
William Foley, who said he “made his living ripping off the elderly. He
told people he was a lawyer, but he's actually a former bouncer at a
strip club.”
"I was one of the best there was at conning people
out of their life savings over a telephone," says Foley, who spoke on
condition of anonymity. He claims he has scammed millions of dollars
from his victims. "I am currently awaiting sentencing on federal charges
for my crimes, and in a nine-month period, they estimate $7 million --
and that's in nine months."
Foley told the intervier he's been conning people
since 1995. "I always wasn't as good as I was now, but I would have to
say, $30-40-50 million, perhaps, I coaxed out of people's pockets."
He did it by playing on the American dream of
instant wealth, using kindness and patience to insinuate himself into
the lives of elderly and lonely people.
The show presented the cases of several seniors who
had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, when convinced they had won
the Canadian lottery and all they had to do was pay the taxes on the
winnings.
The text and video of the show is available by
clicking here.
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