It seems like such a simple, low-risk con.

You use the ubiquitous telephone to trick a business into thinking it placed an order for what you’re selling and you make sure the people you target are outside your province to lessen the likelihood of being prosecuted.

But every once in a while, phoney invoice companies get caught up in their own nose-stretchers. Then sweet justice prevails.

One such company, Ambus Registry Inc. of Calgary, made the mistake in April 2001 of trying to collect $299 US from a Denver, Colo., leasing company after it supposedly had agreed to be listed in the company’s business directory.

“Pay up!” demanded Ambus’s importunate dun.

To which the company’s nonplussed president wrote back: “Any claim by your representative that we requested to be listed in any directory is totally false. You see, our company is in liquidation and will not be operating after May 1.”

Happily, the law is now catching up with these schemes. The mighty Washington-based U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is in the final stages of talks with Ambus Registry over a legal action filed by the agency to put a stop to the company’s sales tactics.

It seems that the Ambus masterminds who flim-flammed businesses from New York to Hawaii now would rather settle than enroll in Licence Plates 101 at the School of Hard Rocks.

The FTC worked closely with Canada’s Competition Bureau and Alberta Government Services in pulling together its case. It was assisted by the Better Business Bureau of Southern Alberta, the RCMP and Calgary police.

In January, Associated Merchant Paper Supplies, Inc., and several corporate and individual co-defendants settled an FTC action launched November 2002 in an Ohio federal court by agreeing to be banned from selling directories or office supplies.

The companies, which operated boiler rooms in Ontario and Quebec, also face Competition Act and Criminal Code charges by Canada’s Competition Bureau. The defendants’ marketing tactics stung businesses throughout Western Canada.

Phoney invoice office supply scams are among the most common complaints received by Better Business Bureaus in British Columbia and Alberta.

“There is no legitimate reason to mislead businesses into believing that they’ve ordered a service when they haven’t,” says Howard Beales, director of the FTC’s bureau of consumer protection. “It’s a fraud and we’re committed to stopping this type of activity.”

Ambus’s tactics are illustrative of what your office should look out for when a stranger calls.

Here’s how the pitch goes:

Telemarketer: “Hello. It’s Iggy Schmertz calling from your American Business Registry (Ambus’s CD tome). How are you doing today?”

Company employee: (This hapless soul could be anyone, even the janitor, who happened to be walking by when the phone rang). “Fine, thank you.”

Telemarketer: “We spoke with your company a couple of months back. A quick call – you were scheduled to receive your American Business Registry on CD-ROM last month. Unfortunately, we had a problem in our shipping department so nothing got sent out to you. You should receive your office copy in the next two or three weeks.

“Quality Control will give you a call back to verify the shipping label.

“Thank you for listing with ARI and have yourself a great day!”

The call is followed up days or weeks later by somebody claiming to be from Quality Control. The purpose of the call is to “paper the file” to create the illusion of documentation that someone at the victim company authorized the order.

Business owners usually can do little more than mutter imprecations against these corporate cheats and the ancestry from whence they slither. But with a little imagination, you can take matters a step further. How about invoking a hex on your tormentor?

The Better Business Bureau of Southern Alberta’s archives contains a file on an early 1990s skirmish between Merchant Supply Services, Toronto, and a Hanna, Alta., lawyer whom the enterprise made the mistake of trying to fleece.

Merchant Supply stiffed the lawyer with a shipment of overpriced toner. “Your firm has overcharged me by $955.78,” thundered the legal stalwart. “Please remit, otherwise I shall sue.”

The company countered with a $367.48 refund offer.

The lawyer wrote back that this offer did little more than annoy him.

“I have engaged that noted and famous witchdoctor at Chancellor, Alberta – one John Schmidt, a famous writer and voodoo hexer. He has made a voodoo doll of you and is sticking you, at this very moment, where it will hurt the most.”

Those who know Schmidt would quake at the thought. The former Calgary Herald columnist is huge and given to fits of flamboyant behaviour, such as the time he threw cafeteria dinner buns at the Herald’s computer technicians after his terminal acted up once too often.

“Believe me, you will start to feel more and more uncomfortable until you remit the overcharge of $955.58,” the lawyer’s letter continued. “The typing in this fax message will disappear if exposed to light and heat. If you want to preserve this letter, you should make a copy.”

Three weeks later, the lawyer received a cheque for $955.58 and a letter from the Merchant Supply president thanking him for the missive. “I also received a letter from your voodoo hexer,” he wrote. “His logic got through to me.”

(Brock Ketcham is the director of trade practices for the Better Business Bureau of Southern Alberta. He can be reached at brock@businessedge.ca)