Illegal promotion that is designed to deceive consumers and is delivered through the mail. For example, it would be fraudulent to advertise a "miracle weight-loss pill guaranteed to make an individual lose 10 pounds overnight." It is also considered mail fraud if a consumer orders merchandise through the mail without any intention to pay. Marketers who receive several orders from the same address but with different names, or orders with obviously bogus names and addresses, such as "Mickey Mouse, Planet Pluto," may report these individuals to the appropriate authority for investigation. Some mailers maintain a list of frequently used bogus names and reject all orders from them. Regulations governing mail fraud have been enacted by the federal trade commission, state and local governments, the U.S. Postal Service, local Better Business Bureaus, and trade organizations such as the direct-marketing association. See also postal inspection service.
Mail fraud
| Marketing Dictionary: mail fraud |
| 5min Related Video: Mail fraud |
| Business Dictionary: Mail Fraud |
Illegal promotion that is designed to deceive consumers and is delivered through the mail. For example, it would be fraudulent to advertise a ‘miracle weight-loss pill guaranteed to make an individual lose 10 pounds overnight.'
| Law Encyclopedia: Mail Fraud |
A crime in which the perpetrator develops a scheme using the mails to defraud another of money or property. This crime specifically requires the intent to defraud, and is a federal offense governed by section 1341 of title 18 of the U.S. Code. The mail fraud statute was first enacted in 1872 to prohibit illicit mailings with the Postal Service (formerly the Post Office) for the purpose of executing a fraudulent scheme.
Initially, courts strictly followed the mail fraud statute's language and interpreted it narrowly. The early decisions required a connection between the fraudulent scheme and the misuse of the mails for a violation of the mail fraud statute. Since its enactment, application of the statute has evolved to include dishonest and fraudulent activities with only a tangential relationship to the mails.
Punishment for a conviction under the mail fraud statute is a fine or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both. If, however, the violation affects a financial institution, the punishment is more severe: the statute provides that "the person shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both."
Both the Supreme Court and Congress have consistently broadened the mail fraud statute since its enactment. Prior to a 1909 amendment, a violation of the mail fraud statute required proof, among other requirements, of either opening or intending to open correspondence or communication with another person. In 1909 Congress eliminated this requirement and replaced it with the language that the mails be used "for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice or attempting so to do." This amendment followed the Supreme Court's decision in Durland v. United States, 161 U.S. 306, 16 S. Ct. 508, 40 L. Ed. 709 (1896), which held that the mailing only needed to "assist" in the completion of the fraud. Although this amendment was the last significant change until 1988, the Supreme Court has struggled with the relationship between the mailing element and the execution of the fraud.
The Court's struggle with this relationship is illustrated by two of its decisions: United States v. Maze, 414 U.S. 395, 94 S. Ct. 645, 38 L. Ed. 2d 603 (1974), and Schmuck v. United States, 489 U.S. 705, 109 S. Ct. 1443, 103 L. Ed. 2d 734 (1989). In Maze, the defendant stole his roommate's credit card and car and signed his roommate's name to the charge vouchers to obtain food and lodging. The merchants mailed the invoices to a bank in Louisville, Kentucky. The Supreme Court held that this did not fall within the scope of the mail fraud statute because the mailings did not perpetuate the fraud. The Court held that the scheme did not depend on the mailings and that the fraud was completed once the defendant signed the vouchers. The Court refused to interpret the statute as merely a jurisdictional requirement and stated that "Congress could have drafted the mail fraud statute so as to require only that the mails be in fact used as a result of the fraudulent scheme."
However, in Schmuck, the Court did expand the mail fraud statute. In Schmuck, the defendant sold used cars to auto dealers in which he had rolled back the odometers to inflate the vehicles' value. The dealers sent title application forms to the state department of transportation to register the cars after the dealers sold them to individual purchasers. The Court held that the sale of the vehicles depended on the transfer of title and that, although the mailing of the registration may not have contributed directly to the scheme, it was necessary for the passage of title and perpetuation of the scheme.
In recent years Congress has amended the mail fraud statute twice. In 1988 Congress added section 1346, which states that the term "scheme to defraud" includes a scheme to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services. In 1994 Congress expanded the use of the mails to include any parcel that is "sent or delivered by a private or commercial interstate carrier." As a result of these amendments, the mail fraud statute has become a broad act for prosecution of dishonest and fraudulent activities, as long as those crimes involve the mails or an interstate carrier.
| WordNet: mail fraud |
The noun has one meaning:
Meaning #1:
use of the mails to defraud someone
| Wikipedia: Mail fraud |
Mail fraud is an offence under US federal law, which refers to any scheme which attempts to unlawfully obtain money or valuables in which the postal system is used at any point in the commission of a criminal offense. Mail fraud is covered by Title 18 of the United States Code, Chapter 63. As in the case of wire fraud, this statute is often used as a basis for a separate federal prosecution of what would otherwise have been only a violation of a state law. "Mail fraud" is a term of art referring to a specific statutory crime in the United States of America. In countries with non-federal legal systems the concept of mail fraud is irrelevant: the activities listed below are likely to be crimes there, but the fact that they are carried out by mail makes no difference to which authority may prosecute or the penalties which may be imposed.
Types of mail fraud
Non-delivery or misrepresentation of mail-order merchandise
This scheme exists in various forms; order an item, make payment, receive nothing is the simplest form of mail fraud. Other variants include misleading descriptions (advertisement says an expensive camera is available by mail-order, when the item arrives it turns out to be a toy camera), deliberate sale of defective merchandise or even stolen merchandise. High-ticket items such as computer hardware are particularly tempting targets for scam artists.
The same scams now exist online; non-delivery of auction or mail-order merchandise advertised on Internet sites is a common complaint.
Another variant involves shipping merchandise which was never ordered, obtaining a signature on delivery (or even COD), demanding payment for the items on the basis that they were signed for at destination.
Promotions selling services or data delivered entirely online are also particularly high-risk; if the promoter in question refuses to deliver as advertised, a fraud may be much more difficult to prove than if the seller is obliged to ship a parcel which requires a signature at destination.
Internet fraud and online auction fraud
Internet fraud or wire fraud schemes may also qualify as mail fraud if the mails are being used at any point in the scheme, including a request that a money order be sent to pay for non-existent or undelivered auction merchandise. Many of these schemes are merely variants on the fraudulent mail-order scams in which the merchandise is never delivered as described or delivered at all.
Online schemes claiming that "a hot female escort will give you access to her entire pornography collection on some Internet site if you send a money order to a drop box in Barrie", if payment is accepted by postal money order and the product never received, would also qualify. The original solicitation is made online, the supposed product claims to be delivered online, but use of the mails at any point (such as to receive money or negotiable instruments) could easily qualify such a scheme as mail fraud.
Impersonation
A number of schemes which misrepresent the identity of the sender, delivering forged documents or bogus requests for personal info (see Bank fraud, Phishing) have also been perpetrated by mail; one version involves sending bogus forms which claim to be from taxation authorities requesting or demanding banking info in order to collect tax on deposit interest. The information obtained is then used in other frauds or in theft of identity scheme
Promotional cheques
It looks like a coupon and is formatted to appear like a cheque; "oh look, XYZ long distance company wants to send you $10". Look a little more closely and this supposed "cheque" contains slippery fine-print wording which authorises the company to change the cashing party's default telephone long-distance carrier or incurs other obligations on their behalf.
Solicitations in the guise of an invoice
This is not an invoice. This is a solicitation. You are under no obligation to make any payments on account of this offer unless you accept this offer.
--- PLEASE PAY THIS AMOUNT --->
the wording on some rather slippery documents which look like they're bills or invoices even though they're not. The wording of the disclaimer is taken directly from the US Postal Service Domestic Mail Manual; the intent is to be able to claim that this document is not a fake invoice while still retaining a format which allows a small percentage of recipients to mistake it for a bill and send payment. If the amounts requested from businesses by these "solicitations" are in the hundreds or thousands of dollars, even a fraction of a percent response rate suffices for the scheme to be profitable.
Schemes involving actual fake bills or invoices (such as one where copies of a bogus dry-cleaning bill are mailed to every restaurateur in town with a "your server spilled food on my expensive suit, pay my cleaner's bill" note) have also been used to attempt to defraud unsuspecting victims.
Get-rich-quick schemes
, such as the Ponzi scheme or pyramid scheme in which the addressee is invited by a "chain letter" to send money to the first of a list of names and addresses before forwarding the letter to several more people. The person starting the Ponzi scheme claims to have become rich (the infamous Dave Rhodes letter with its claim to have made $50000 is an online variant of this) but the people at the bottom of the pyramid receive nothing. In some cases, every address on the chain letter will be a drop box controlled by the person sending the letters or by one or more accomplices.
Another common get-rich-quick scheme is the Nigerian 419 scam which claims that someone wants to transfer some large amount of money out of their country (or is making a deathbed effort to donate it all to a church or charitable organisation); and all that is needed is for the recipient to send all of their bank account information and some inflated advance fee to pay for the cost of the transfer or the cost of legal counsel. Of course the massive fortune in foreign money never arrives; the scheme exists to victimise the greedy and the gullible.
Work-at-home scams
The ad claims that a small fortune can be easily earned "working at home", "assembling small products in your spare time" or "stuffing envelopes" (presumably for a few dollars per piece, not the few cents that businesses actually pay to have a machine do this). Just send $29.95 for more info! Another variant claims that manufacturers are providing sample quantities of laptop computers or other high-ticket items for virtually nothing or that info can be obtained on purchasing motor vehicles for a few dollars at a secret government auction.
The info, if it ever arrives, turns out to be worthless as the easy-money opportunities do not exist as described. Most likely the only way to make money is by selling the info to another person.
Fraudulent charities and "religious" donations
A number of organizations have been set up, claiming to be charities that solicit donations to assist poor and needy families in need of financial aid, food aid and/or medical assistance. While many charitable organizations are legitimate and respected, the more unscrupulous organizations have been known to solicit large sums of money in donations, but actually contribute a very small percentage (or even none at all) to the actual persons in need of assistance.
In a similar vein, various "religious" organizations have been known to seek donations of money from well-meaning persons. These appeals for assistance often target senior citizens, mentally handicapped persons, and even homeless persons -- people who are often susceptible to pleas for mercy and compassion.
Theft from the mails
Sometimes the mail itself has been the target of thieves; parcels containing merchandise or envelopes with "pay to the order of..." visible in the window are prime targets, as are credit cards or payment cards mailed by banks to their depositors. One purpose of this is providing checks to be altered through check washing, having their amounts and the name of the recipient changed.
The most notorious incident of theft of mail was the Great Train Robbery, in which a gang of robbers stopped an entire mail train by tampering with railway signal lights, then robbed the train of registered mail containing valuables being sent by local banks to their head offices.
External links
- Better Business Bureau
- US Federal Trade Commission
- US Postal Inspection Service
- ScamClub Read More about Mail Order Scams
- [1]
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
 | defraud |
| fraudulent |
| title |
 | Where can you go to report mail fraud? |
| Who do you report a fraud involving the mail? |
| What is statute limitations for mail fraud? |
Copyrights:
 |
 | Marketing Dictionary. Dictionary of Marketing Terms. Copyright © 2000 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
|
| Business Dictionary. Dictionary of Business Terms. Copyright © 2000 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Law Encyclopedia. West's Encyclopedia of American Law. Copyright © 1998 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Mail fraud". Read more |
- What are the laws concerning mail fraud?
- Can a mail fraud conviction be expunged?
- Statute of limitations for mail fraud?
- Which occurs more often mail fraud or internet fraud?
- What's Prison time for mail fraud?
- What constitutes mail fraud?
Mentioned in
- Mail Fraud and False Representation Statutes
- Postal Inspection Service (in marketing)
- Garvey, Marcus (History)
- The Inspectors 2: A Shred of Evidence (2000 Thriller Film)
- The Package: Seinfeld (TV Episode) (1996 Comedy TV Episode)
- James Michael Curley (American politician & statesman)
- Dan Rostenkowski (American politician)
- forgery (in criminal law)
- Pyramiding (finance term)
- work-at-home (in marketing)
- Leona Helmsley (Business Personality / Convict)
- Bernard Madoff (Business Personality / Fraud)
- Mike Huckabee (State Governor)
- American Experience: Marcus Garvey - Look For Me in the Whirlwind (2001 History Film)
