Dear Editor,

Seldom does a week pass when I am not tormented by a scammer. They sound so polite, so professional, so nice.

This past week one called to tell me a cock-and-bull story about money that is available to me from some class-action lawsuit. I wasted a little of my time scam-baiting. I sounded so jubilant you would have thought I was celebrating the winning of the billion-dollar jackpot. When I thought I had wasted enough of my precious time by giving fictitious data like a mailing address and verifying other demographics, I was asked for a credit card number to pay the taxes and processing fee. It was then that I said to the young man on the other end of the line, “Yardie, put it on your card for me, subtract it from the winnings, take a tip, and send me the change.” All of a sudden the accent disappeared, the courtesies went through the window, and I was showered with a barrage of some discoloured, old-fashioned Jamaican expletives.

It seems to me the greater the effort law enforcement puts into plugging the scamming hole, the more they become braver, fiercer, and cunning. It’s likewise strange to see that with all the public service advertisement that is done to combat fraud, especially scamming, there would be rational people who would allow themselves to become victims of scamming. These scammers pretend to be agents of high-tech companies, tax agencies, lottery games, car insurance companies, and debt collection agencies offering winnings to people who have had no engagements with these entities and yet they would pay fees to earn where they did no work. Society has indeed been corrupting and corrupted. I sense it is a difficult task, but I believe the police and tech companies need to do more to prevent and stop these scams.

It is so sad that our little island home has become the capital of scamming in the Americas. It is even more painful to see youth who should either be in school preparing for a career or a vocation heavily involved in this rapacious industry. Someone needs to bell this cat. Those engaged in this “industry” need to be reigned in. The get-rich-quick mentality has been intoxicating. It seems that the quest of these irresponsible youth is to build a mansion on the hilltop, acquire the latest fast car, or own a few high-powered guns. No wonder there is so much bloodletting/homicide in the land.

This scourge has severely affected the image of our nation. Tourism is affected, businesses are affected, and international relationships have been smeared.

I am happy the United States Government has intervened, resulting in multiple extraditions, and those extradited have paid dearly for their sins of extortion. But even with these arrests, the vice has not abated. I read recently that it is now worse than the pre-pandemic level.

So what can be done to heal this deadly wound? Here are a few suggestions:

1) Flood the print and electronic media with information on how to detect fraudsters.

2)Put teeth in legislation that will be a deterrent. Some of the penalties these hoodlums get are akin to a slap on the palm. Let them pay heavy fines plus restitution, and if they can’t rise to the occasion then they rot in jail.

3)Establish a police, military, and civilian task force to monitor this scamming industry and provide them with the necessary raw material they need to execute their job so that they can slam the scam and give it a mortal blow.

4)People who are not employed or working, but have money awash to gallivant and live like multimillionaires should be investigated and be made to account for their ill-gotten gains.

The people at the grass-root level can add other practical ideas that can help the Government to grapple with this problem. Something harsher needs to be done now to mash up this sophisticated crime ring that is preying on the aged and vulnerable and staining Jamaica’s image.

Burnett Robinson

blpprob@aol.com