Oh no, no, I’m not suggesting you replicate the wild West and shoot all naughty telemarketers. This is a different type of Colt, it is Project COLT, a joint USA and Canadian telemarketing fraud watchdog. But this is not a usual pen-pushing dog. In its first 10 years of successful operation, COLT has seized almost $25 million that people had lost to fraudulent telemarketers.
You might say it is not much but hey, somebody has to do something, and obviously the thousands of telemarketing victims, who have found redemption with a helping hand of COLT, are over the moon. However, strictly speaking, these $25 million is a drop in a duck-pond. During these ten years people on both sides of the border (I mean USA and Canada) has lost a total gross of $150 billion!
COLT (abbreviation for Centre of Operations Linked to Telemarketing Fraud) is like a powerful private detective. The guys are being respected by the FBI, in fact they have carried out several mutual operations. The Project is especially good at “blowing up” the secretive telemarketing boiler rooms, they can intercept money (only on some occasions) unaware people send to fraudsters, they are also rolling out education programs to increase the public understanding about good and bad practices in telemarketing.
The Project is concentrating on their native Montreal area but during their opeation they have also helped many USA victims. Well done. I especially like the part about education - we need to repeat it over and over again: it is easy to tell a genuine telemarketer from a fraudster!
