Here's excerpts from a detailed article. Evidently they were arrested a year ago, and recently sentenced. I did a www search for "Gonczy".
http://www.thetimesharebeat.com/archives/2.../ts/tsoct58.htm
Ten Indicted In $12 Million Timeshare Appraisal Telemarketing Fraud Scheme, Reports U.S. Attorney
BOSTON, MA -- Four Massachusetts residents and six Florida men have been named in a fifty-count indictment for running an appraisal fraud scam and money laundering operation that in a four year period defrauded in excess of $12 million from approximately 20,000 victims nationwide.
According to the indictment, the scheme operated through a series of steps. First, the defendants had established a number of purported Buying Companies based in Florida and Texas which would contact timeshare owners and make a host of misrepresentations, including that they would buy their timeshare if the owner obtained an appraisal and that they would reimburse the owner for the appraisal fee at the time of closing.
Once the Buying Company had gotten a timeshare owner interested in obtaining an appraisal to sell their timeshare, the Buying Company then referred the timeshare owner to a purportedly independent service, Multi-State Listing Service (``MLS'') -- a second boiler room, which would put the timeshare owner in touch with independent and approved appraisal companies. The Buying Companies falsely claimed that they received no fees from the appraisal companies and had no part in the appraisal process.
The indictment alleges that in the second phase of the scheme, MLS would provide the timeshare owner with a list of three to four ``independent'' appraisal companies supposedly with personnel in the area of that person's timeshare. According to the indictment, every one of these appraisal companies was part of this scheme. The appraisal companies, the indictment alleges, were opened for the sole purpose of executing this scheme and were run by GONCZY's children, his friends, or former telemarketers from the boiler rooms involved in the scheme.
The indictment alleges that after speaking with an MLS representative, the timeshare owner was next contacted by a third boiler room operation. These telemarketers, according to the indictment, falsely represented that they were actually calling from the appraisal company the timeshare owner had selected. In this call, the timeshare owner was coaxed, through additional misrepresentations, into providing his or her credit card number, the indictment alleges. At this point, the timeshare owner was then billed for the appraisal.
The indictment alleges that the next step in the scheme was that roughly eight weeks later, the appraisal companies would mail the timeshare owner a bogus two-page ``appraisal'' that falsely represented that the timeshare had been inspected as part of the appraisal process. According to the indictment, these reports were simply printed off a database at a total cost to the appraisal companies of roughly $25 each, which included a $5-$10 payment to the person who signed the report, falsely verifying the purported inspection. The appraisal report issued by these purportedly ``independent'' companies, spread out across the United States, had virtually identical formats and standard language and often contained the same typos.
