Scam Alert: Telephone Con Artists Use Make-A-Wish Foundation's Name To Steal From Seniors

June 14, 2010 — -- A massive telephone sweepstakes scam targeting elderly Americans and exploiting the good names of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, and Lloyds of London has escalated dramatically in recent weeks, officials with the Make-A-Wish charity told ABC News Monday.

The Arizona-based charity, which grants wishes to children with life-threatening illnesses, is trying to fight back. Make-A-Wish told ABC News it would be issuing a national fraud alert today in hopes of warning potential victims that telemarketers' promises of big payouts are part of a pernicious fraud scheme that reemerged in January four years after the U.S. Justice Department thought it had wiped out the scam.

One victim interviewed by ABC News last week, retired Pennsylvania elementary school teacher Robert Sussman, said he lost more than $23,000 in the con in March.

"It's a terrible loss. I was scammed. I was just scammed," Sussman told ABC News.

Sussman said that after he discovered he had been tricked into wiring the money he collapsed face down on his kitchen floor. Doctors later determined he had suffered a mild heart attack.

"I felt like I was ready to kill myself," he said. "I can't afford to part with $23,000."

He is not alone. Dozens of calls have come into the Make-A-Wish Foundation in recent weeks from victims of the scheme, in which a telemarketer purporting to be from an insurance company or a government agency calls to announce that the person has won a sweepstakes sponsored by the charity.

The targeted victim is told they need to wire an insurance payment or luxury tax payment in order to collect a prize, usually in the range of $350,000. Only there is no prize. The callers gain the aura of authenticity by using sophisticated internet phone technology that makes it look on caller ID systems like they are actually calling from a Washington, DC, exchange, and from an official-sounding government agency.