For four years Jeremy Josic and his brother Daniel ran a tidy family business selling “licker licenses.”
Between March 1999 and June 2003, the brothers managed to convince thousands of stay-at-home moms into stuffing envelopes for a tantalizing fee: $5 to $10 per envelope, or up to $5,000 a week. There was a catch, of course. Wannabe stuffers first had to send in a one-time “money-back guaranteed” fee–between $59 and $149, plus $20 for shipping–for a starter kit that included letters, envelopes and customer mailing labels.
Fishy as that scheme may sound, some 30,000 people bit–including many young, uneducated moms who saw the Josics’ ads in women’s magazines like Redbook and Family Circle and who were desperate to earn some extra cash.
Meanwhile the Josics, along with the help of co-conspirator Donna Bombard, racked up $2 million to $3 million in fees that were sent to at least six rented mailboxes in Cleveland and Akron, Ohio.
The Josics’ luck ran out recently when the manager of a Mail Boxes Etc. store tipped off the U.S. Postal Inspection Service that something was amiss.
On Dec. 2, a judge in a U.S. District Court in Cleveland sentenced Jeremy Josic to 12 years in prison for mail fraud, conspiracy and money-laundering. Brother Daniel pled guilty last June to the same charges; he agreed to pay some $750,000 in fines and to spend around 47 months in the can. (He awaits sentencing in January.) Bombard got five months in the slammer and a $20,000 fine.
Editor note: Unfortunately, for every scammer caught, three new scammers pop up.
Photo by ppdigital.
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