Wine scammers targeting retirees in south-west France handed prison sentences
One victim spent €14,000 on wine in six months
The scammers used insistent methods to force sales through (photo for illustration only)
Karolina Grabowska / Pixabay
Two men in the south-west of France have been jailed for scamming retired people in the area out of thousands of euros by marking up the price of wine.
Bottles were sold for up to ten times their typical price to pensioners, after being brought wholesale by the men at discount rates.
The scammers targeted people aged between 78 and 98 - some with Alzheimer's disease – using insistent sales tactics to force them to buy the product. The sales were conducted over the phone.
In one instance, a man spent €14,000 on table wine in six months.
The operation was focused in the Landes, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, and Gironde departments, although a sprawling web of nine affiliate companies and a call centre in Morocco gives a scale of the size of the fraud.
Twenty-five complaints were filed against the men.
The two men received a jail sentence of two years (six months suspended) and must reimburse the victims after a hearing in Bayonne (Pyrénées-Atlantiques).
A lawyer defending one of the scammers claimed his client was simply a deliveryman and unaware of the fraudulent activity, which he said came solely from the Moroccan call centre.
Read more: French police bust wine fraud ring selling low quality wine for €15,000 a bottle
Read more: How a French winemaker put the world’s biggest wine fraudster in jail
