but recognizing that fraud has become globalized particularly when talking about targeting of seniors with so many types of scams. lottery scam that inheritance scams, ultimately we have to move faster, share information faster and collaborate faster. one example of what we can do but it takes that kind of sustained cooperation between law enforcement and in other countries. >> that is coordination among law-enforcement and the international component will affect the messages we will send consumers and that is something david would like to talk about. how the fcc is recognizing international component of much of their work and our affect seniors, to consumer sentiment. >> let me put this in context. there has been a terrific summary of the kinds of scams that are plaguing older people

in the united states. they pose a real challenge for law-enforcement and consumer education. let me run through some of the reasons why that is so. these are retail rather than wholesale scams. one of the keys to this scam typically is getting someone on the phone and having a conversation with them. they may be initiated through the internet or through the receipt of a fake check but generally there is one on one interaction between these camera and the victim. second as jonathan pointed out lot of these boiler rooms are not in the united states. there in canada and jamaica and guyana. we get these complaints. now we have been through in spain showing up on our list in terms of where these calls originate from. so these are not the boiler rooms in tampa that we can shut

down easily. third, for a multiplicity of scams. if you want to issue people grandparents scams that is one thing that these take multiple forms. there are grandparent scam that lottery scam that sweepstakes scams that fake check scams and mystery shopper scams. as you multiplied the form the scam takes you geometrically increase the difficulties of doing consumer advocacy. we have a three pronged approach to going after these scams? first and foremost we want to stop these scams and close down the blue the roms. we work closely with canadian authorities, jamaican authorities and others to try to find these guys and stop them. we also are trying to go after what we think is the pivot po t point. at some point the elderly person needs to send money to the scam artist. that is the point where we can

go after them, wholesale, not retail. we have the second largest money transfer co. underwater. we have western union agreeing to abide by essentially the terms we have in our money grant. one of the things we have done that is starting to yield results is we have insisted on really clear consumer ads. if you walking to any walmart today hopefully within a year you walk into any walmart, principal outlets are in wal-mart stores. they are under our order. you will see facing you as a consumer a miranda warning. if you won the lottery, guess again. if you sending money to a relative of, call and make sure. if you think the check you just catch is a real check wait a month because it probably isn't. if you have been hired as a

mystery shopper, you are out of luck. they are training the personnel who actually man the desks to talk to an elderly person who is about to wire money to jamaica or montreal, why are you sending this money? one of the sad parts, this gets to what naomi and beth were talking about is sometimes they have to fight with the person. you didn't win. but it says right here at won a million dollars and there are tragic stories in which ultimately they leave the money gramm outlet which won't win wire the money and go somewhere else. sort of underscore difficulty of concede -- >> will, just to echo what david was saying, commonly in these types of scams and i believe

david will notice in order to shore the victims that they have won they may very well received documents on ftc letterhead or irs letter had, federal reserve letterhead saying they have won the lottery or saying this amounts and one of the tactics the government can use is there are laws against impersonating a federal employee or using this type of stuff. >> we're not only going after the wire transfer companies but agreed not to lowery funds getting money in jamaica, to try to combat this fraud because as important as it is, going after

these cameras, important consumer ed is the way we will ultimately get real transferred -- interdicting the flow of the money. >> that is an important conceptual law-enforcement tactics that a lot of as the using which is what we have been calling a joke which is where can we attacked the flow of money? we have been talking about what seemed to be specific sophisticated fraud overseas using phone and wires but the tried and true door-to-door fraud, they're not selling aluminum siding anymore, the attorney general's office has done a lot, talk a little about be door-to-door fraud. >> it is very common. we have seen all of these scams among the consumers we are representing. one of the scams that is very

common in our area partly because every year we face a lot of storms, which you all have been reading about in indiana and tennessee and illinois we always get tornadoes and severe storms with hail etc.. there are a group of scanners that will go from door to door from state to state following the storm. we call them storm shapers -- storm chasers. travelers come seasonally depended on what the issues are. they will follow a disaster and the door to door and say things like i just repaired your neighbors's approved and i have some material left over. be happy to give you a discount on your repair for your house because i have got one more day that i am going to be here. if you can decide right now. there is this high-pressure

sale, concerned that your going to make a deal right now. we did it for your neighbor. they are trying to give a number of areas comfort with respect to i have already been in your neighborhood at southern. we have seen people get on the roof and make damage so that they can ostensibly repair it. a lot of times the insurance company gets involved where they talk the person into signing of their ability to take the money etc.. it is a pervasive thing. we see it seasonally as well. it is a really big problem. we also see many of the things you have been talking about in terms of persons helpers' coming into homes and taking advantage of elderly persons. >> next, talking about strangers calling up or folks --

>> it can be -- takes advantage of the situation. we have also seen persons committing identity theft. this is something we warn people about all the time where you have a repair individual who has come into the home. is especially elderly people but any of us. don't think about what kinds of personal information might be lying around in the house while that individual is wandering around affecting repair. it is important. one thing we educate people about is before you have some stranger into your home, be sure to walk around your home especially where they might be and cover up everything and make sure anything that has your personal identification information is taken and put away someplace safe. we find -- i really appreciate all the research because we find

education one on one to be much more effective with elderly than anything else. what we do is go around the state and i would discourage ftc and federal parties to use the state offices. a lot of us have extensive outreach departments where we go around the state and specifically educate groups of elderly and other vulnerable populations. they listen to us because they think of us as being -- we have a certain amount of authority for them because we are the ag's office and they see us as good guys. we have a bit of trust. it is harder to reach people with paper and this is a group of population where you have awesome materials on the internet but they don't use the internet and they don't look on the internet for information. they don't even know they need the information until you tell them this is going on. we do it and you will be if not

more often. >> in the issue of time -- just one question which is a natural outgrowth of what you are saying which is some folks don't know to ask, don't know what is out there. how do law enforcement learn about fraud? how can folks more willing to report them and turn around and tell people what is happening? >> we depend like every other law enforcement agency on the courage of people to step forward. one of the things we have been doing is common ground conferences. we go all over the country meeting with consumer groups, legal services, local law enforcement to try to encourage people to reach out. that effort has yielded an enormous difference because we are getting people in the nursing home sort do reach out

to provide service to the elderly. >> we will stop on that because that is a fascinating point as opposed to waiting for people to come to us, take that as a last message. you can reach out to where folks are. thank you, folks. [applause] >> we're going to want to -- >> tax day is approaching and the panelists to my immediate left, sally cooper, director of operations for the internal revenue service criminal investigation and to her left is carol ide from the department of justice. they're going to talk about common tax scams that consumers and individuals should watch out for as they are preparing to

file their tax return. thank you very much. >> good afternoon. thank you for having me on the panel. i am sally coo verbally with the acting director of operations policy and support for irs criminal investigation. one thing we were talking about as we were listening to all the panels is there's a permeated of scams or commonality between the scams in every panel presenting today. as far as criminal investigations, c i is the investigative arm of the internal revenue service. we enforce the criminal statutes relative to tax administration and related financial crimes in order to encourage voluntary compliance with the internal revenue. once the investigation is

complete, we forward a recommendation for prosecution to our partners at the department of justice. specifically with the with a tax division reviews our work and hopefully authorizes for us to go forward with prosecution and they then in turn reports to the respective u.s. attorney's office. carol is going to give a little bit about her mission. >> the tax division does review all criminal referral from the internal revenue service criminal investigative division. returnees do a lot of prosecution but we really rely on local united states attorney's to carry the bulk of that in the criminal prosecution. we also have a civil arm, civil attorney. as you know there's a lot of affirmative tax litigation which actually may be seen as anti consumer. i have been doing for closures for 23 years so there are number

of people who probably don't like a part of our mission. we also combat on the civil side a lot of a kind of scam that we will be talking about today. for example getting injunctions against bad tax return preparers and abusive tax shelter promoters and things like that so we are working and in accordance with the attorney general's recent memorandum pushing parallel investigations where we shut down a scam, collect as much delinquent tax and penalties as possible but also investigate and prosecute wherever possible so we are pushing parallel proceedings. each year the irs has been putting out what we call the dirty dozen and what that is is

a list of 12 of the top 12 scams perpetrated against innocent taxpayers. i am going to discover a few of them today but topping the list is identity theft. you have heard that mentioned through several presentations. is becoming so critical to protect your personal information. as was mentioned on the previous panel even having someone in your home you have to be careful what you have lying around. the irs is taking a very proactive look at identity theft. we're sending notices to taxpayers which is their first notice that their identity has been compromised when we see more than one return being filed and/or we see a w 2 has been filed in that person's name that has an unknown employer.

in january, the irs announced where we get a coordinated sweep trying to attack this identity theft issue. anyone that believes that their identity has been compromised, there is an irish identity specialized unit and that information can be accessed on ira.gov and look for identity theft. mr. barack and of the attorney's office mentioned the identity theft and also fishing which is where someone uses e-mail or some other electronic media to solicit some want to respond, giving personal identification or account information and for irs it can appear is coming from

either a legitimate irs inquiry or some related entity. irs will generally not send an initial solicitation or request for personal information to a taxpayer. that would be a warning sign right away. if you get an e-mail from someone that appears it is irs or appears related to irs be concerned and don't respond. either call the irs or go to the irs.gov and look for steps to take but that is one way once they get your information they can use that for all types of scams. they can use it to file false tax returns. they can use it to obtain mortgage loans. they can use it for all types of things and it is very hard to correct once that happens. >> let me just add with the electorate--the phishing to get

personal information from consumers and what happens is generally these scanners file some sort of false refund claim and often the first notification, a victim will have that somebody else have stolen their identity and gone their personal information and file the bogus refund claim is when they go to file their own tax return and it gets bounced because the irs already received what appears to be a legitimate tax return under that individual's social security number. these scanners file tax returns very early in the tax season. most of them are on vacation by now. and if you are like me you are just thinking about pretty soon i need to file my tax return. the legitimate folks can get really surprise. we prosecute -- the irs has been

referring a lot of refund crimes that are facilitated through identity theft to the justice department. we participated in the january push. even since november when our attorney general testifies for the house committee, this november we had a ton of strong sentences for refund crimes they include aggravated identity theft and the lot of these were able to get as part of sentencing a restitution component so restitution hopefully to victims and sometimes not everybody that is involved in a refund crime is necessarily a victim but there is restitution for innocent victims as well as the u.s. treasury. collecting that is another story but the courts have been pretty receptive to giving restitution

to both categories of victims. the individuals and the united states. >> you made a good point that all taxpayers who are subject to a scam may or may not be victims in the first two. the phishing and id theft there are more victim than part of the scheme. when talking about questionable return repairs and you go to return prepare and give your information you are still responsible for what is on their return. in 2012 every return prepared needs to have a prepared text identification number and when they find that return they need to enter that number on the return. let me just say we are focused on consumer fraud but most of the return preparers are honest and decent. we are focusing on the ones that are taking advantage of individuals. some of the things you need to

watch out for or consumers need to watch out for when choosing a return preparer is one who signed the return to enter the text repair or tax identification number. do they give you a copy of the return? you should always seek what has been filed with irs and you should get a copy to sign. are they promising you a larger refund than you thought you would get? it goes back to the old adage of somebody mentioned earlier, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. do they base your refund, their feet on a percentage of your refund? that is a clue because it probably means they are inflating your refund in order to increase their feet. do they require to split the refund with them? do not ever sign a blank return

and let them fill it in and mail it in because if you are going to a return repair to have your return prepared you are responsible for what is on the return. this comes in to some injunction earlier and that is one of the mechanism is used against fraudulent return repairs. >> one thing to keep in mind is 60% of u.s. taxpayers use a paid return preparer. most of them are good. they have gone through education programs and have their prepare tax id number and they do a decent job but it is the ones that are perpetuating fraud and taking advantage of consumers that are the real problem. we can deal with that in the federal government two way is. number one is prosecuting them. it is a crime to file false return. it is a crime to assist people

in filing a false statement with the united states but the other thing we do and can often do much more quickly is get a civil injunction against a bad return preparer. to stop them from preparing bad returns. that can frequently be done much more quickly than a criminal prosecution. typically what we will do is get a referral from the internal revenue service on a bad return preparer and talked to several clients. maybe people who worked with the return preparer, get a preliminary injunction, issued a press release right away and the community knows we have a bad return preparer or at least potentially bad return preparer and seeking a permanent injunction. a number of bad return preparers say we give up. we will start preparing returns

and we get a lot of these injunctions by them. in fact u.s. attorney's office in los angeles is doing a fabulous job getting consent injunction from the tax return preparers often as part of a plea agreement in criminal prosecution. they are killing two birds with one stone. would you do with that is have incredible deterrent effect. you clean your area of bad return preparers and that is the power of the criminal and civil injunction. one of the typical provisions -- the return preparer notify all their clients they have been prohibited and perhaps their returns were false or fraudulent. and a list of all the clients

for whom they prepare their returns. what that means is internal revenue service try to make up -- with number it -- vogel is to collect the right amount of tax for everyone and their victims. a lot of them participate a bogus return. try to collect right amount of tax. >> free money, people advertise come to us, this targets the

lower income individuals and elderly we just heard about. filing the return and sometimes the returns don't go through but they have their fees. we have a number of tools and criminal investigations that we use to identify these taxpayers and do investigations that our goal is to enforce those laws and put people in jail and putting them against the taxpayers and the government. to deter that from happening in the future. just like we are meeting here today and people have been working all day one of the best preventive measurements is awareness so that we do out reach and talk to people so that they are aware of these scams are going on and hopefully when someone approaches them with something that appears too good to be true they think twice

about it before they commit or turn over money or their identifying information even when you are going out to your own personal health care or other items. a lot of times the form will ask for your social security number and other identifying things and i found generally my husband is the primary and then never had it. they never come back and ask. they are able to process without that information's of as much as we can give out as little information in a public venue the better because personal information that gets out is vulnerable for a bad purpose to use it for misdeeds whether it is filing a tax return or some of the other scams you heard about. ultimately they are all to make money for somebody who is getting something it doesn't belong to. if you have any questions or

doubts about information you receive especially that is unsolicited please go to www. irs.gov web site and they have all the official information that has been put out that would be used by irs for official business. >> a little reminder on the table outside, the press release of this year's dirty dozen. so if you want a light reading you can read about the other scams we deal with and get access to the internet this afternoon. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> our next panel is on business opportunity fraud schemes. moderator is charles harwood, deputy director of the bureau of consumer protection with the federal trade commission.

analysts are lois greisman, and division marketing practices, andre birotte who you heard from earlier, united states attorney from central district of california, richard goldberg of the consumer branch civil division of the department of justice, ed mierzwinski, consumer program director with united states public research interest group also known as pirg and peggy shanks who is senior examiner of the maryland attorney general. i turned it over to chuckle. check. >> who among us hasn't that some time or another thought wouldn't it be great if i -- it was a fleeting thought but if we took a poll we would find many think they have within them some place the ability to make it on their

own, start their own business, maybe not the next bank but they will do something that will make some extra money. in many instances it stops right there. consumers think -- it pretty much stops at that point. in times of financial anxiety when people are feeling anxious and uncertain i suspect when people are thinking that their job is at stake and they need extra income because they're not getting the hours they used to get and they are facing extra education costs and worried about medical bills that they may be facing or realizing for example that their retirement doesn't go as far as they thought it would. their feeling financial anxiety and that is the situation many consumers are in right now. when they find that it makes them more likely to take that next step.

try to make money on their own and signed up for a business opportunity or to try to find a work at home scheme. when they go in the marketplace and look around they find there are many companies and individuals happy to help list are that business opportunity or start that work at home program. that is what we are going to talk about. business opportunities and work at home. we will see in a minute that there are many legitimate opportunities out there but there are also many instances where consumers end up being scanned and and up worse than they were before. we're going to talk about this and i am going to start with lois greisman with the federal trade commission. and talk about what we are seeing with the business opportunity fraud schemes. >> it is a real problem that is not going away with the economic downturn. people are unemployed and underemployed. they need to supplement their

income. i want to take a moment and say what is the business opportunity? is a commercial arrangement. i will help set you up in business. you will pay me to set up and i will provide you something that may or may not be real. securing an outlet for setting up a place, location assistance or maybe willing to buy back your merchandize which often is the touchstone of a worker at holmes came where you will sit at home stuffing envelops or filling various pieces that i will buy back and find a market for you. consistently a top complaint getter over the course of the year, last year 1.8 million complaints, business opportunities were in the top 20. >> next to lois is rich goldberg. you have done a lot of work,

talk about one of the schemes you have worked on and how you did the investigation and what you found. >> typically business opportunities we investigate involve sale of vending machines, coffee machines, dvd kiosks, any self-contained unit that can be placed in a retail outlet and locations are promised by the victims opportunity firm as well. supposed to be high traffic high profit locations where the buyer of the machine is going to earn a large profit. so frequently these salespeople use earnings to help prospective buyers to make their money back within a year or so. they will send them to references who claimed falsely that they own a successful opportunity with these vending machines. frequently they are the cousins or brothers or other sales people who are opposing as real customers but in reality there getting paid to lie to protect

of buyers. customers will also be referred to locators who will promise these high traffic high profit locations when in fact they are part of the conspiracy. one of the scams we have uncovered is a particularly nefarious kind of scam in conjunction with the postal inspection service. this was a scam that appeared to be out of the u.s.. various different cities where these scam artists purported to be in the u.s. and purported to sell coffee machines or greeting card display racks from the u.s. but they were in costa rica. all finds from prospective buyers indicated that they were in fact in these cities in the u.s.. they moved voice-over ip to make it seem they reusing real phone numbers in the u.s.. they reusing drop boxes in the u.s. and other mechanisms to

disguise the fact that they the salespeople, locators and references were all sitting in a boiler room in san jose, costa rica. they had various phones that indicated phone numbers bigger and u.s. phone numbers they were purportedly from. they had scripts saying i am john doe and i'm a successful buyer of this business opportunities so that the telemarketer in san jose knew what to say to the prospect of buyer. working with the government we were able to execute search warrants and costa rica executed search warrants in san jose and also able to do a number of arrests and extradite these folks back to the united states for prosecution and received high sentences as a result of a prosecution. these typically -- the scams we prosecuted have been ones where it is not true that these

consumers should have been aware they were being scam. this isn't the circumstance of if it looks too good to be true with probably is because these consumers are doing their due diligence and calling references and calling locators and looking at the better business bureau and their web site to see if these businesses are rated. these scams will open up under one name and run for nine ten months and close down and resurface under a completely different name and location so there's no way that consumers could no. no with the better business bureau would know that this is a fraud that has been going on for years. so in some contexts that advice is good for consumers, for consumers in the business opportunity industry they won't know. they need to look at the advice of the federal trade commission because otherwise they're going to fall for the scam.

>> thank you. peggy shanks is with the attorney general's office in the state of maryland. talk about what we have seen in the state of maryland. >> i would like to say that anything i say may not necessarily be the opinion of the maryland attorney general and based on my own information. having said that, many scanners rely on technology, the internet and web sites but i can assure you telemarketing and these phone calls are alive and well. recently we got four such cases. one of them involve an elderly woman. it is pretty much a typical. we have a business opportunity. great investment where she would purchase a nice website where she would sell travel packages that she will learn some commissions. it piqued her interest so while later caller be says he will be

her account manager and help her set it up to buy three levels of packages. you can earn $9,600 from one sale. she told her she is going to get these travel binders with discount coupons that will help her business. so she buys her office and give them $300. on the same day after that he says you might need national advertising because you are going to decrease sales and get people interested. gives a credit card number and pays another $1,500. a day later he called her back and says you could earn a one thousand dollars from sale and the level one director package. she pays an additional $2,000. two weeks later to upgrade to level 2 director package and get leads and 6500 targeted visitors to her web site. she was concerned because she

had credit cards with high interest rates but put $4,000 from that credit card. 32 weeks later steve called and said you should upgrade to a level iii director package. the elderly ladies as all i have left is savings bond for my daughter's college education. you are going to pay for your daughter's college education with money are going to earn. she writes a check for another $7,900. two months later another one called, she still had some money. and additional $600 she could get an auto responded to promote the web site. months passed. ville and trying to get these out reminders but never received any. she invested $18,300 and made no money. the commissioner does not have the authority but even if so there was no money. this arizona company filed

bankruptcy. as a creditor she thinks she is going to get her money back. we know that is not true. maryland issued an order that they have not responded to but it alleges violation of the act, fraud and other misrepresentations seeking a permanent bar against the company and president from offering selling business opportunities. the problem is just as rich said many of these companies -- is not a sinking ship. they resurface as a new entity with the new company name or spouse or sales reps and they are at the helm of a new company. >> to my left is it -- andre birotte leaders and u.s. attorney from los angeles. we heard about this opportunity. talk about instances where a consumer last $18,000.

i wonder if you could talk about how serious the losses have been and what relief you have been able to obtain. >> i mentioned some of them in my earlier remarks. one advantage is we try to devote our resources where we can get the biggest impact. i am being blunt. i'm talking about the sentence. we will typically take cases with a high dollar amount. hate to say given dwindling resources but we usually cooking fraud schemes from the five million mark at a minimum. there are a number of reasons for it. we have 200 federal criminal prosecutors in our district who represent eighteen million people saw you can imagine we have to pick and choose has it relates to the cases but when we do the cases we have sentencing

guidelines that dictates or guidelines to the court and often in these fraud schemes tied to the loss amounted. we went to if we are going to proceed forward make sure we get a sentence we can make the public know that if you commit these crimes you will go to prison for a significant amount of time. you have an individual who defrauded 87,000 victims and went to prison for six years. we have individuals go to prison 12 years involving schemes that -- $39 million, $6.9 million and other instances. really talking high volume. the purpose is we want to have the press and the public know that if you try to commit these schemes the federal government is going to be watching and we will try to impose and hold you accountable to the harshest sentence we can.

>> let me turn to lois. he talked about the prosecution efforts. what efforts will we take, of their regulatory activities or rules in place to protect them? the is that the state level. >> the ftc has a wonderful tool at its disposal. a regulatory requirements that requires the seller of a business opportunity, streamlined short and tidy as it can be. who is the seller? prior litigation that the sellers may have been involved in. you start earning $10,000 a month. they have to provide written substantiation for those claims and the disclosure document requires a list of references so

the consumer has at his or her disposal the ability to find out who purchased this most recently and what was their experience. disclosure requirements took effect march 1st and i can assure you the ftc along with our partners at the state and federal level will be vigorously enforcing it. >> how about the state level? i am curious what resources are available for consumers who want to learn more about the state level and what they can turn to? >> we have the maryland business opportunity sales act. i like the new business opportunity which expanded in scope and covers -- only have to make a payment before the threshold with the payment over $500. payment over $300 pays the first six months. under the new federal law it covers the work full steam. it is a good thing. our law does not cover that but

the business opportunity traditionally or historically been covered, still be required to file a more in-depth disclosure documents required under our act because it will give greater protection and more disclosure to the business opportunity. for example the first thing it would do would be described what the seller promises. will talk about the agreement and the location assistance in the name of locators and those types of things. one of the most important disclosures is whether they will get exclusive territory. everybody knows competition is important. they will disclose funding arrangements. they will include a copy of their audited financial statement not older than 13 months and risk factors if it is high risk for speculative nature. the most important thing is they

will get the disclosure document under federal or state rule before they sign or pay money. seven calendar days before they do that. in maryland it is ten business days. this allows them to review the disclosure and to check it out before they invest. >> thank you. i want to get to ed mierzwinski but we have time to ask questions. especially lot of tools here for dealing with this opportunity fraud problem. what is your experience to pull those together and take an effort to stop this? >> a pretty impressive track record. federal, state and federal and state and civil and criminal at each of the last several years we have coordinated with our law

enforcement partners. we call them broad initiative to pull together resources to tackle business opportunity and a slew of bottom dollar fraud. the most recent one was in the last 12 months. it was called empty promises. filed by the ftc and law enforcement part is. this gives an opportunity to have a maximum impact, visual impact and get a lot of press coverage and couple the law enforcement activities with a consumer education peace. >> you worked on some of these joint efforts as well. >> we have limited resources for criminal prosecution. we work with the u.s. attorney and ftc and postal inspector and the fbi and the case comes to my mind where there was a joint enforcement action. there was an investigation but we needed additional assistance so we went to the u.s. attorney's office. very quickly the fbi joined in

and executed the search and seizure warrant. it resulted in federal prosecution and criminal conviction of a 32-year-old woman sentenced to 30 months in a federal penitentiary. >> before we get to ed mierzwinski the bigger still from a criminal standpoint -- thank you. at the federal level, were we successfully working together? working with states and the ftc? >> the department of justice consumer protection branch has participated in all of the sweeps with the federal trade commission and the state counterparts and the last several speaks we added criminal prosecutions of to 140 criminal prosecutions of business opportunity fraud thursday over the last several years. those have included defendants sentenced to prison terms of a few years, ring leaders have gone sentences of ten years, 15 years and 20 years in jail for this fraud.

we have had some defendants who are fearful of criminal prosecution and fled to other countries and we have been successful at arresting these folks who have fled in countries like coast arica and the philippines and foreign governments have been cooperative at expediting these individuals back to the united states for prosecution. it serves a terrific deterrent effect. civil and criminal. >> this is nationwide. in a world of dwindling resources the task force models seem to work. the big cases we get from our partners at the state or local level or regulatory agency because in some instances that can be the tip of the iceberg. we get information about operation -- a ring that is going on and start to build and get grander losses that get to the guideline level and bring a big impact on the community. >> now i shift gears.

heard about the scams and the injury but who are the victims? are these people who think they can make money overnight? >> people should turn to their left and they're right and look at the people sitting here. is not the other guy. then look in the mirror. it is people like you and me. educated people. people who have done their due diligence and is david vladeck said. we have last dollar scam that target individual consumers for mortgage relief for debt relief and scams that target people whose jobs have been downsized and spouses have been laid off. retirees whose 401(k)s read like stephen king novels because of the crisis wall street jumped on us. it is really everybody. even people who have done their due diligence as rick said. >> same thing with your victims. >> that is one of the challenges

in trying to get the message out. we had a press conference not so much in the business opportunity realm but what was mentioned earlier. we were able to get seven folks come forward. one of the persons i worked with in the city of los angeles, college educated fell for it and so the challenge is getting people -- it can happen to anyone. we try to let people know that. >> in addition to law enforcement, there is educational component to all this. we want to talk about the educational efforts being made. >> first of all the federal trade commission web site is the place i would recommend consumers start. look on their website, ftc.gov

at business opportunity fraud and check with the state attorney general. the maryland attorney general is here. you can find their address on your state websites. the national consumers league is here. they have a site, fraud.org which is helpful to consumers. i would really advise people to not pay attention to the information from the people that are working possibly in fraud with the frogs there but to consider talking to their friends below quote consumer groups and consider giving someone i don't know $20,000 to make a lot of running. what do you think? consider hiring an attorney for one hour of consultation. there are a lot of places i would start but i would go first to the ftc.

>> take a look at that disclosure document. >> streamlined one page. to serve as a warning. if you don't get that one page document the purchase last for it. if you don't get the runaround, leave. i want to echo something others said. often times the victims are sophisticated people and there is no quick fix which is one of the reasons we have to remain as vigilant as we have been. >> the worst happens and people find they have been victimized, they will get their money back or lost it, what do we do? >> there are reasons we have tens of thousands of complaints and we use them. our law enforcement partners sitting here use them. they go into a central database. last year 1.8 million such

complaints went in to that database. they are a treasure trove. is a resource we can use. developed a case of a first instance for there is a crook operating out there to find victims to help us build up the evidence we need to shut them down. i urge people to followed complaints with the better business bureau and their state attorney general. >> i would echo that. federal, state regulators. the attorney general also has a web site and you can call us. it might be wrong cue. they can afford the call to consumers securities or tell their state agencies. we network with other state agencies across the country and send e-mails. a lot of the fraud comes out of arizona and nevada and utah and sometimes is necessary to contact those agencies out there but the main thing is to report

it to come forward. the first question is how did i get myself into this? i ask myself that all the time. there are a lot of people who fall victim to business opportunity fraud. nothing to be ashamed of. the question is what can i do about it? there is a private right of action to sue not just for not registering certain violations. doesn't mean they will get their money back. it is important to report it if you know someone has been a victim because it may prevent more victims. on a final note, there is a new kid on the block. we have seen a new company that contracts the victim and says they can help get the money back for a fee. now they become victimized a second time. >> good cautionary note. do you want anything else? >> the key thing is to report and that has been the challenge. many of these folks after happened how can i let myself to

this? tell their friends about it and that is what allows the cycle to go on and the other thing is the all-purpose of this roundtable is to develop those relationships and partnerships. i am coming out here from los angeles and i am going to take this on the road and convene a meeting like this because quite frankly you are the vehicle by which we can get the word out to the street, the churches and different community groups to let them know. these are great websites and tools but if no one knows to go to ftc.com they can't know when to follow the complaint but if you take to community groups and here are the things that are going on legal ask us to come to you and give a presentation. we have a community relations specialist and that is the purpose. to get out and spread the message of what our agencies do to provide that service because at the end of the day we are

about protecting communities the wearily as good as the information we get. it is a 2 way street. i encourage you to take us up on that offer. the attorney general and tony were serious about engaging in a continuing dialogue. this is not a one time meeting. >> on that note, forceful and powerful no i think we will stop here and turn it back over to our host. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. that ends our panel session. what you saw here today with this summit, three panelists and remarks by the attorney general and other cochairs and consumer protection working group best exemplified what this financial fraud task force is all about. is a mechanism to allow all the

different federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies and offices and inspectors general and state attorneys general and others involved in this area to get together and share information and best practices and talk about how we can do better and help prevent fraud from occurring in the first place and when it does occur how to increase our enforcement efforts. what you saw today was a good example of that in action. as many people have said this is not an end but a beginning. we will continue to work together. as the attorney general has said on a few occasions in the past, consumer fraud schemes and other financial fraud schemes has diverse as the imaginations of those who perpetrate them and as sophisticated as modern technology will allow. we are on to those schemes and we will continue to pursue them and protect the american consumers and others from being victims of financial fraud and we t