TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: 'Dr. Phil Show' Gets Ripped Off by Con Artist


'Dr. Phil Show' Gets Ripped Off by Con Artist


TELECOM Digest Editor (ptownson@telecom-digest.org)
Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:00:00 CDT

We get 'Dr. Phil' on Channel 7 on CableOne here in Independence each
weekday at 3:00 PM. It just now came on today, and the good doctor
is complaining that his name and reputation has been ripped off by
some Nigerian-407 style con artists. Someone got a toll free 800
number listed as 'Doctor Phil' and when anyone calls 800 directory
assistance for (the real) Dr. Phil, the directory robot operator
gives them the number for the bogus 'Doctor Phil'. The person on the
other end claims to be the producer of the show, and asks for money
to set up an interview with him. Naturally, the money (at least a few
hundred dollars, typically a thousand or more) has to be wired to the
con-artist on the spot. He has an FBI investigator and others looking
into it. Thus far, it has been traced to somewhere in Houston, TX,
where the calls terminate on various phone lines. Two victims thus
far have wired money to the scammer in Houston, each of them from
desparate elderly people who were convinced to send large amounts of
money to the bogus 'Dr. Phil'. On television they are trying to lure
the con-artist out into the open. The scammer claims the money should
be wired to 'Esther Hernandez' who is (the bogus) Dr. Phil's secretary.
More details on this in the next issue of the Digest. Now I want to
go in and watch the rest of it on television myself.

PAT

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