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A Texas Specialists in B2B Outbound Telemarketing that spliced together audiotapes of telemarketing conversations in order to place unauthorized charges on the phone bills of Missouri businesses will pay more than $1,400 total to the state and to those businesses that were defrauded, Attorney General Jay Nixon said today. Nixon said WebXites, one B2B Outbound Telemarketing based in Houston, fraudulently placed start-up and monthly fees for Web page design services on the phone bills of 23 Missouri small businesses.
Nixon says WebXites' specialists in B2B Outbound Telemarketing sales would call small businesses and offer them a free 30-day trial period to try the company's services, while informing the recipient of the call that it was being recorded for accuracy. Most declined the sales pitch, but WebXites spliced the calls to create audio tapes that made it appear as though the business expressly authorized the purchase of WebXites services and agreed to have charges for those services placed directly on its phone bill.
WebXites would then send the phony audio tapes to the target business' phone company so that it could charge the $49.95 set-up and monthly fees to the phone bill of the target business without the business' consent. Among the small businesses victimized by the scam were a pizza restaurant, a pharmacy, a business that sells log homes, and a chiropractor.
"This Specialists in B2B Outbound Telemarketing took the art of telephone fraud to a new level," Nixon said. "In some cases, the targeted businesses made it perfectly clear that they were not interested in the services that WebXites was providing, but still found these charges on their phone bill. Small businesses have enough challenges in trying to succeed without having to worry about being victimized by such a shameless scam."
Tags : Outbound Telemarketing, Telemarketing Firm
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Published by Adrian
on Friday, July 21, 2006 at 4:05 PM.
Nixon says WebXites' specialists in B2B Outbound Telemarketing sales would call small businesses and offer them a free 30-day trial period to try the company's services, while informing the recipient of the call that it was being recorded for accuracy. Most declined the sales pitch, but WebXites spliced the calls to create audio tapes that made it appear as though the business expressly authorized the purchase of WebXites services and agreed to have charges for those services placed directly on its phone bill.
WebXites would then send the phony audio tapes to the target business' phone company so that it could charge the $49.95 set-up and monthly fees to the phone bill of the target business without the business' consent. Among the small businesses victimized by the scam were a pizza restaurant, a pharmacy, a business that sells log homes, and a chiropractor.
"This Specialists in B2B Outbound Telemarketing took the art of telephone fraud to a new level," Nixon said. "In some cases, the targeted businesses made it perfectly clear that they were not interested in the services that WebXites was providing, but still found these charges on their phone bill. Small businesses have enough challenges in trying to succeed without having to worry about being victimized by such a shameless scam."
Tags : Outbound Telemarketing, Telemarketing Firm
