Pocono News Section

AT&T Relay Fraud

AT&T Relay Fraud - Friday, June 20, 2008 at 7:44PM EST

Friday, Jun 20, 2008 @ 07:44pm EST
Kingston, Luzerne County -

Eric Marsico frames art work here at the Vgogh Art Gallery in Kingston. But one customers request just didn't sound right. A customer calling himself John Mark first emailed Marsico then used a relay service for the deaf. That's where you type what you want said to an operator and it's passed on. The order for fifty gold frames was to be put on two credit cards. The man wanted Marsico to run the cards and send him the approval codes. The cards were Visa so Marsico called the company. Both cards were listed as fraudulent and were stolen from someone else.

Marsico hopes telling his story can help other business owners before they get framed into a scam. The Kingston Police chief says this kind of fraud is hard to stop. Vgogh's owner says the scammer was out of Nigeria so some sort of federal help would be needed to make an arrest