Mainers targeted by scams, too

Every time a devious new scheme comes skulking up the information highway, my first reaction is to assume there is no one foolish enough to get bilked by so transparent a fraud.

I’m always dead wrong, of course, which probably makes me as naive as the fools who are so easily duped into parting with their money. If there really is a sucker born every minute, there is an equal number of shysters just waiting at keyboards or telephones for the opportunity to pick their pockets clean.

There are the credit-card scammers, telemarketing scammers and drug-card scammers. There are the dream-vacation scammers, Internet chain-letter scammers, bogus-lottery scammers, home-repair scammers and college-loan scammers. There are the Ponzi scammers and the pyramid scammers, too, who made their rounds recently in cities and small towns all over Maine with their illicit “women’s gifting clubs” and so-called “NASCAR” parties.

And apparently there are many among us who have yet to hear of the notorious Nigerian scam, because it’s been fleecing Americans out of $1 million a day for years now. The Public Protection Division of the state Attorney General’s Office has gotten so many inquiries about the bogus e-mail scheme that an entire section of its Web site is devoted to the successful fraud and the many guises it has assumed.

Despite all of the cautions issued by federal and state agencies, consumer-advocate groups and the media, there will always be those folks who either failed to get the message somehow or chose to ignore the warnings. It happened just recently to a man in Dexter, in fact, who lost more than $3,000 when he agreed to help an online scammer, who identified herself as a Nigerian woman, to obtain money she claimed to have parked in a Maine bank.

Now, allow me to introduce you to the latest scam that is sweeping the country and could very well be lurking on your very own phone-answering machine at home. It’s a titillating ruse that deceives victims into thinking they’ve mistakenly received a phone message that was not meant for their ears, even as the scammer has you directly in his sights.

In the voice mails, an obviously excited young woman, who appears to have dialed the wrong number, breathlessly explains to a girlfriend that the “hot stock exchange guy” she is dating just told her about a small company whose stock price is poised to go through the roof. In one of the messages, released as a transcript recently by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the woman gushes that the company “is supposed to be like the next Tommy Bahama,”the popular clothing brand, and that its stock is expected to jump from 50 cents to $5 or $6 a share within the week.

“Dad and I are buying a bunch tomorrow,” says the sweet young fraud, “and I already called Kelly and Ron, too.”

Known by securities experts as the old “pump-and-dump,” once an online scam that is probably making its way to a phone near you, the crooks promote shares of small and unknown companies with the promise that their prices are about to soar. After demand has driven up the stock price, the scammers dump their shares and reap the profits. When the price falls, those foolish investors – not you, of course – lose their shirts.

“Oh, yes, I’ve heard about it,” said Christine Bruenn, securities administrator with the Maine Office of Securities, which deals with investment-related issues. “We haven’t had any calls or complaints from Maine people yet, so we’re hoping to bring them out of the woodwork.”

Bruenn said she has, however, heard from colleagues in other states who are getting calls from people who are curious about the intriguing phone messages and from those who have already been stung.

“Every time you think you’ve heard it all, another one comes along to top it,” Bruenn said. “To be honest, I can’t help but admire the cleverness of these scammers. They’re good. On the other hand, I feel so bad for the people who get taken in by them.”

The phone message may use different names for the callers and the companies, Bruenn said, but the scripts are all pretty much the same.

“It’s always about some youngish woman who has a ‘hot’ boyfriend who works in the stock market,” Bruenn said with a laugh. “It’s kind of funny and kind of clever, but it really highlights the lengths that scammers will go to these days to separate people from their money. People have to learn to be very vigilant about these things, and certainly should never trust hot tips from ‘hot boyfriends.’ I don’t know any more what it will take to get people to understand. It’s very frustrating for us.”

While sitting in the crowded waiting room of a busy airport not long ago, Bruenn said, she overheard the phone conversation of a woman seated nearby who embodied those very frustrations.

“She was on a cell phone talking to her friend about this great new way to make money that her boyfriend had read about on the Internet,” Bruenn said. “Then she went on to describe the Nigerian scam. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”

Just as Bruenn was about to go over and talk with this clueless woman – to remind her that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is – three other waiting passengers beat her to it.

“My theory is that greed – or maybe a combination of greed and need – really affects people’s better judgment,” she said. “But when it comes to these clever scammers, common sense is still the most valuable tool there is.”

People with securities-investment concerns are urged to call the Maine Office of Securities at (877) 624-8551.