These Scammers of the Elderly Deserve An Especially Harsh Place in Hell

Scams targeting the elderly have always been a scourge and it will never go away.

Usually, the victims are pressured into buying something they neither want nor need.

According to Consumerist, one outfit is even worse: They bill elderly targets for something they never ordered, with or without pressure, and use hardball, scary tactics to collect the money the victims don't owe.

The FTC says it's on the case against what it
says is among the worst of scammers targeting the elderly. 

The Federal Trade Commission is going after the (alleged!) crooks at the company called Instant Response Systems.

According to the New York Times, the company called tens of thousands of elderly targets, including many who were on the federal Do Not Call list, which bars unsolicited telemarketing calls.

When victims try to dispute the charges, or cancel checks or put a stop on credit card payments, the company just tried to scare them into paying. The bills were often $1,000 or more.

One woman got this letter from Instant Response Systems:

"You gave us your banking information by telephone and authorized us to use it to collect your promised payment. However, when we submitted the payment to your bank, it "bounced'...
You have embarrassed us and damage our reputation. We had to pay bank fees, in addition to accounting, manpower, and other costs. We will NOT absorb these cost or pass them on to our paying subscribers
We suggest that you consult an attorney and ask about the criminal and civil consequences of bouncing checks."

So far, I haven't seen any responses to the allegations from Instant Response Systems.  But if what the Federal Trade Commission says is true, the people who run this "company" deserve a special place in hell.

Let's scam money away from elderly people on limited, fixed incomes and then terrorize them if they don't pay us. Most people would not sleep at night if they did something like this, but I guess the world is also full of psychpaths.

Let's hope for once, so called white colllar crime leads to long jail terms if people with Instant Response Systems are indeed guilty of these misdeeds.