Consumer Fraud Defined

Lately there has been a rather alarming increase in fraud perpetrated on people and companies.

It’s the economy; it has to be as there were never the number of fraud cases prior to the recession hitting as the legal community is seeing now. Just about daily there are articles in the news about federal and local law enforcement officials rounding up and prosecuting individuals and groups that are likely to be committing fraud. This is an area of the law where if someone is facing charges under either fraud statute, the best advice is to immediately hire a skilled attorney familiar with these areas.

Prosecuting fraud is a rather tough thing to accomplish, as the definition of fraud is one that suits just about any given situation. In other words, there is not just “one” set definition of what fraud is and because of that, fraud usually gets tossed in with and prosecuted under the area of federal mail and/or wire fraud.

These two areas under the statute are really well loved by those who prosecute for a living, simply because both federal mail and wire fraud are tailor-made to use in instances of those scheming to defraud. Call these “catch all” statutory provisions, but they do yeoman’s service when needed. These are also appealing statutes because there are so many ways that criminals have of creatively defrauding people, that the law needs some leeway to fight back and put a lid on this kind of crime.

Criminal defense attorneys find these statutes are vague enough to pick holes in them and therefore be able to defend their accused clients. A nice two-way street that works well for both sides of the adversarial system, because on close examination the law is very liberal in relation to the requirements of proving that a scheme is indeed fraudulent. Put another way, the government isn’t required to show the defendant really did trick or swindle someone. They only have to show that a person devised a plan with the “capacity” to defraud.

When dealing with the mail fraud statute, the bottom line is that it is a crime to carry out a fraudulent scheme using the mail system. Obviously just about every business uses the mail system, including Joe and Josephine Citizen. If Joe and Josephine are involved in fraud (say a shady MLM scheme) and using the mail to spread their plan to anyone willing to listen, their mailings are subject to the mail fraud statute (federally and within their state.)

Here is something that not a lot of people are aware of when it comes to pulling off a fraudulent scheme. The person committing the fraud doesn’t even need to physically put the envelope in the mail. All that needs to happen is that the person perpetrating the fraud causes “someone else” to use the mail system to promote the original fraud. It works this way: a person defrauds Mr. Y to buy something and Mr. Y then mails a payment.

Wire fraud is a similar deal; in other words, it’s a crime to wire information to someone promoting a fraudulent scheme – period. And that applies locally or if it’s a foreign wire communication. As with mail fraud, so it goes with wire fraud as well. The person committing the fraud does not have to personally wire a missive, so long as the wire is from a fraud victim and is done to carry out a fraudulent scheme. While this might be a bit complex to grasp, a simple example will clear things up. For instance, consider the infamous cases involving phone solicitations of customers all over the U.S. and false ads on radio and TV.

This is a very tricky area of the law and hiring a highly skilled attorney to defend any charges faced under these statutes is a smart move.

Gomez Law Group is a Dallas employment lawyer and Dallas business lawyer. To learn more, visit http://www.gomezlawyers.com.

Tags: Dallas business attorney, Dallas business lawyer, Dallas employment attorney, Dallas employment lawyer

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