BUSTED: $10 million scam in Largo

By: Janie Porter

Largo, Florida – It’s being billed the largest telemarketing scam in a quarter century.

The Federal Trade Commission says Strategia Marketing, based in Largo, cheated thousands of Americans out of tens, and perhaps hundreds, of millions of dollars.

“We believe tens of thousands of consumers across the U.S. have lost their money,” C. Steve Baker, director of the Midwest region of the Federal Trade Commission, said at a news conference at the Largo Police Department Wednesday.

The FTC maintains Strategia Marketing operated for several years under at least 15 different business names. Investigators say telemarketers called consumers to offer ‘free’ trial memberships in discount buyer and travel clubs and later charged consumers for a series of programs without their knowledge.

The FTC says Strategia used negative option programs, which take a consumer’s silence or failure to cancel as acceptance of an offer.

Gayla Scott, of Fort Myers, agreed to join in November, excited about the promise of a free stay at a hotel in Orlando.

Scott was told she could cancel within 10 days, but she says it took that long to get an information packet on the program in the mail.

“Saturday was the day I got the package. So that Monday I called, and the charges had already gone through my bank and set me overdrawn in my account,” she said. Scott says she lost a total of $293.30, but got it all back by mid-December.

Wednesday morning, scores of police and federal agents swarmed Strategia’s building on Ulmerton Road in Largo, telling employees to go home.

The nine companies allegedly involved in the scheme employ at least 700 people, according to the FTC.

According to the FTC, a U.S. district court in Tampa has entered a temporary restraining order that temporarily halts the scheme and freezes the assets of all defendants, which include: FTN Promotions, Inc., doing business as Suntasia, Inc., Suntasia Marketing, Inc., and Capital Vacations; Guardian Marketing Services Corp., doing business as Guardian Escrow Service; Strategia Marketing, LLC; Co-Compliance, LLC; JPW Consultants, Inc., doing business as Freedom Gold, Variety!, Credit Life, and Freedom Ring ULD; Travel Agents Direct, LLC doing business as Travel Agents Go Direct, Florida Direct, and Lucid Long Distance; Agent’s Travel Network, Inc., doing business as Florida Passport; Bay Pines Travel, Inc.; and Suntasia Properties, Inc.

The FTC says six of the defendants are individuals believed to be at the head of the scheme, including: Byron W. Wolf, Roy A. Eliasson, Alfred H. Wolf, Donald L. Booth, Jeffrey P. Wolf and John Louis Smith II.

Criminal charges may be filed.