{"id":120489,"date":"2021-10-11T12:36:52","date_gmt":"2021-10-11T16:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/?p=120489"},"modified":"2021-10-11T12:36:52","modified_gmt":"2021-10-11T16:36:52","slug":"feds-nab-printer-toner-firms-for-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/feds-nab-printer-toner-firms-for-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds Nab Printer Toner Firms for Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

\"Feds<\/a>Followers for the Bach Seat<\/a> know that printer ink is one of the most expensive materials on earth<\/a>. Well, the U.S. Department of Justice<\/a><\/strong> just prosecuted one of the worst examples of the sky-high price of printer toner. The DOJ announced<\/a> that Gilbert N. Michaels<\/strong> of West Los Angeles was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison. He was convicted of orchestrating a decades-long, multimillion-dollar telemarketing scheme<\/strong><\/a> that defrauded more than 50,000 victims<\/strong> by selling printer toner cartridges.<\/p>\r\n

\"ecades-long,<\/a>According to the DOJ, his firms, IDC Servco<\/a> and Mytel International<\/a><\/strong>, with the assistance of boiler room call center<\/strong> operators, fraudulently sold over a six-year span more than $126 million<\/strong> worth of\u00a0printer toner cartridges throughout the United States. Michaels\u2019 companies handled the billing and shipping of the toner. He charged the boiler rooms at or above retail prices for the toner they were selling to victims. Michaels provided price catalogs to the boiler rooms to use in making sales. The catalogs listed the price of the toner at up to five to 10 times the retail price<\/strong>. Many of the victims already were receiving toner at no additional charge under their existing contracts for copiers and printers.<\/p>\r\n

Fake printer toner prices increases<\/h3>\r\n

To pull off the scam, the telemarketers would pretend to be representatives of toner-supply companies many of the businesses already had contracts with. The telemarketers would then tell the victims that the price of printer toner had increased<\/strong>. The fake sales reps<\/strong> told the victims they could buy the toners at the previous, lower price, prosecutors said.

\"boiler<\/a>Believing they were dealing with their regular suppliers, the victims would sign order confirmation forms. IDC would then ship toner to victims along with highly inflated invoices<\/strong>.\u00a0When the victim businesses realized they had been scammed, they called IDC to complain. The victims were typically told that IDC could not cancel the order or refund money because the victims had signed order confirmation forms. IDC also failed to disclose its relationships to the telemarketing companies that brokered the fraudulent deals.<\/p>\r\n

IDC would threaten legal action or turn them over to collection agencies<\/strong>, prosecutors said. If IDC did agree to take the toner back, it would demand significant \u201crestocking fees,\u201d<\/strong> prosecutors said.<\/p>\r\n

Not the first fraud conviction<\/h3>\r\n

\"NotMichaels\u2019s operation dates back to the 1970s. This is not his first run-in with the DOJ. Michaels and his companies were under scrutiny in 1988<\/strong>. At that time, the companies were reprimanded for making false statements. They were forced to use an independent sales company to sell printer toner.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

As part of the sentencing, Michaels was ordered to pay a $200,000 fine. His net worth is said to be $6.7 million. Ciaran McEvoy, the spokesperson for the US Attorney\u2019s Office in Los Angeles, said, \u201cMr. Michaels led a conspiracy whose deceptive practices were particularly damaging to the small business community.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

Other defendants<\/h3>\r\n

Six other defendants<\/a> were also found guilty along with Michaels:<\/p>\r\n