How I Got Scammed by Garry Robinson
You
probably thought with the coverage of racing computer programs on shows like
A Current Affair and Today Tonight, the scamsters would have taken a holiday
by now. Not so. About two weeks ago I received a call at work and was asked
"Are you the Manager?" I said "Yes". Would you be interested
in an investment opportunity and I said "Yes." At that stage I was
not given any idea about the program or what the opportunity was but I agreed
that they could send me the information.
A few days later I received
a glossy booklet featuring inside a good looking girl stretched out on a chaise
lounge. On the next page was an even sexier pose by a girl in a bikini on
the deck of a luxury yacht. On the opposite page was a good looking young
couple who appeared to be in the interior of a luxury jet. Oh, there were
some headlines like 'A rare Opportunity" "They will be winners"
and a list of benefits like " Easy exciting work" Self employment"
"Ability to travel" "proven figures" and so on.
Turn to the next page. On the
left hand side is a middle aged man and on the right a good looking young
girl. That'll keep you interested. The text talks about Racing being Australia's
second largest industry and at least that's true. On the next page we see
another successful looking "yuppie" in his sports car and another
young couple. The headlines highlight how bookmakers are going out of business
and how using a starting bank of , wait for it, $200-$500 you can gradually
build a Bank of $10,000 and start making real money betting on the TAB. Of
course you have to agree to restrict your investments so everybody can have
a share.
The figures on the next section
are very impressive. In fact the profits racked up come to over $100,000 in
two years with just 2-3 bets per week. I wish I could do that! The remaining
pages showed more pretty pictures. I particularly liked the girl on the inside
back cover.
The booklet is designed to
appeal to people's aspirations to be wealthy enough to do whatever they want.
The message appears to be that if you invest in this program you will be able
to share in the wealth with very little effort. It's not reality, but I digress.
Maria called to ask if I had
received the booklet and what did I think of it. I played along. "It
looks very interesting." This was enough for the following information
to be revealed. The company is a software development company that used to
promote software for the share market but they had discovered the tax free
money that is available in horse racing. It was explained that all I had to
do was to open a TAB account and do about one and a half hours work on a Friday
evening using Sportsman form guide or download from AAP and then input manually
all the data into their program. It was explained that they only invested
in fields of eight or less at Sydney and Melbourne Saturday Metropolitan meetings.
It was also explained that
the strike rate was 30% winners at average around $5 to $7. Very impressive.
It was also advised that one or two months each year there would be only four
or five selections for the month. I was also told that the maximum bet allowed
was $500. This was in spite of the fact that the booklet showed bets of up
to $1161 in the examples. There were only 190 programs to be sold, I was told
and 187 had gone so I would get one of the last three if I was quick. My understanding
was that the 190 programs were in each State as in response to the question
why don't they bet themselves it was stated that they retained a significant
portion of their own State's distribution for themselves.
Maria was very dodgy about
the information booklet and manual. "They keep it on a different floor
so our sales operators can't see it and unwittingly slip up and reveal too
much about the selection process." Yet in another conversation with Maria,
she revealed her sister backed the previous Saturday's winner and is very
happy with the program.
Now here's another cruncher.
I asked "Why didn't they have a program that automatically downloaded
the form, after all for $6,500 it should have this level of sophistication?"
Maria said AAP was too expensive and that's why they recommended the Sportsman.
People didn't like paying AAP's prices. Gee! For all the money people are
making you'd have to wonder why they would whinge about a few dollars to get
the form. Don't you think?
I asked for some latest results
and got those. Maria then rang about five times a day urgently trying to get
me. I tested some of the "results". Medieval Legend was one of the
winners and the company guarantees the results are genuine. The horse paid
$3.80. The win pool was $284,000 after the TAB deduction so about $75,000
was invested on the horse. The bet was supposedly $766. I did some simple
maths and after assuming 190 successful people would back a horse like this
in the future I found that another $145,000 would have been bet. The resulting
dividend would have been about $1.80. This being the case you could not have
made a profit with the selections.
In another call I pointed this
out to Maria who said she would consult with one of her managers and in due
course Kirsty rang me back.
It was explained that in fact
very few of the purchasers bet at this level, most followed it on paper first
and then with $5 and $10 bets because many had been ripped off before by some
not so genuine companies, so the dividends definitely wouldn't be affected.
I could not convince her otherwise.
The next day Maria called back.
"Kirsty and some of the managers had flown off to Fiji for a holiday"
she said. "So I can offer you a special deal Mr Robinson. You can have
the program for only $3,000 and pay the balance from future profits"
she said. I told her that I had a good program that was already working and
some of the selections were also my selections.
Not long after Liam called
me. "I'm the person who authorized Maria to make the special deal of
$3,000 up front" he said. I told him how some of the selections were
also my selections and he told me "That's impossible." "No
it's not" I said " If you don't mind I will stick with my existing
program." "Don't you want to make an extra $50,000 per year Liam
said. " The problem is that putting extra money when the same selection
comes up would reduce the dividends." I said. I was told that their program
could be reset to provide a different range of selections. Ones that were
higher risk but more profitable.
I said good bye as I had more
than enough material to write this article.
I would love to identify the
company concerned but these companies threaten legal action and we don't have
the time or money to defend ourselves. Let's simply say that if you receive
any approaches they will all be like this one. The company names change but
they are all the same in their operation. Whilst Maria was talking to me I
could hear dozens of phone operators in the background talking to other prospects.
The one thing that should alert
everyone to such scams is that the sensible approach would surely be to spend
$200 to $500 on purchasing genuine racing information or books that could
teach you how to win and the keep the $6,500 they are asking, for a betting
Bank big enough to support your betting activities in a controlled and responsible
way. |