Canadian gets 11 years for bad credit credit card scam

By Jeremy M. Simon

A Canadian was sentenced to 11 years in jail for his part in a $10 million telemarketing scam that focused on U.S. consumers with bad credit.

The U.S. Attorney in Manhattan said that Stephen Clark and another Canadian man operated First Choice Tele-Services Corp., tricking around 44,000 people into handing over fees of $249 to $299 in exchange for "guaranteed" credit cards for those with bad credit.

In the scheme, which ran from February 2002 to October 2003, First-Choice telemarketers made unsolicited calls to low income Americans with bad credit histories to offer them "guaranteed" credit cards.

Although some fraud victims received manuals dealing with credit repair, none received credit cards. The prosecutors charged that First Choice and Clark had no intention of ever delivering the credit cards.

Clark pleaded guilty in September to two counts of conspiracy. Previously, he served about a year in prison after pleading guilty in the late 1990s to a separate telemarketing fraud.

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Published: June 20, 2007

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