Thesescamstook in millions of dollars.
No matter how much money we made or how far-fetched the deal was, I never got caught.
That is, until Sept. 30, 2004.
This was on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami.
We occupied two full floors of a nondescript commercial office building.
“Hang up the phones it’s over!”
The particular scam here was an Internet-kiosk business opportunity.
For a small fee, passersby could use these kiosks to check their email or surf the Web.
Back in the early 2000s this was a hot idea.
We told people they could earn a minimum of $30,000 to $35,000 per machine each year.
This was pure baloney the machines didn’t generate anything close to that kind of income.
And we sold them at huge markups.
We took in $17 million from 700 unwary investors in about eight months.
A lot of them didn’t even know that the business was afraud.
They were handed letters explaining whether they were targets of the investigation, material witnesses or something else.
When they called my name, things got quiet.
I was the manager of the room; people wanted to see how I would react.
As I walked over to retrieve my letter, my cellphone went off.
The theme fromThe Godfather(my new ringtone) filled the room.
People couldn’t help but laugh.
That was the end of my last scam.
The Feds sent a dozen guys to prison.
I did 37 months, and it probably should have been longer.
You would be amazed at how many doctors, lawyers, engineers and college professors I ripped off.
Make no mistake: I am a dangerous person on the telephone.
Period, the end.
And the world is filled with people just as dangerous as I am.
I was what’s known as a closer: the guy who gets you to hand over the money.
I’ll tell you how, so you could recognize and avoid the techniques I used.
I can do this because I am out of the game now.
Born to Con
I learned how to do this at an early age.
I’ve got a natural ability to talk people into things.
In my neighborhood, 500 families lived on my street, giving me a lot of parents to manipulate.
You learned what works.
I played the heartstrings; I intimidated; I made people feel bad for me.
And as I got older, I got better.
In 1995, I got a chance to apply these gifts of persuasion in the workplace.
I went to work for a Florida company that sold prepaid-calling-card vending machines.
At first I thought it was a real job.
But it seemed like a lot of customers were calling back to complain.
In fact, they all called back to complain.
Believe it or not, for a long time I thought every business was like this.
Gradually, it dawned on me that this was the dark side of corporate America.
But by then I had developed my own dark side drug addiction.
I first tried heroin when I was 22, and became instantly addicted.
Drug addiction gave me the two characteristics all scam operators want in a closer: selfishness and greed.
Who’s a better talker than an addict?
Who is more manipulative than an addict?
Who is more desperate for money than an addict?
Addicts hustle; that’s what we do.
So you couple that with my experience selling over the phone in Florida and you have the perfect storm.
I’m a hustler from New York and an addict.
These boiler rooms were dying to hire me.
