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SALT LAKE CITY — A Salt Lake man who started a payment processing scam while being prosecuted for mortgage fraud received a second seven-year prison term.
Chad Gettel, 43, and four others operated a payment processing scheme for proceeds received by telemarketing call centers and other activities associated with fraudulent telemarketing programs.
The scam supported telemarketing call centers throughout the country, including a large operation in Phoenix. Several bogus products were sold through the call centers, including information guaranteeing government grants, business opportunities and “Amazon rooms and accompanying advertising," according to federal authorities.
Gettel and others used fake names to create businesses with false company records to open merchant accounts at various banks that maximized the credit card processing limit of the accounts, the charges say.
They knew that the banks would eventually close the merchant accounts due to the large number of chargebacks and then they would disappear, leaving the banks with the losses, according to the charges. Once an account was closed, Gettel would allegedly shift processing to another merchant account they had created.
Losses to telemarketing victims and banks exceeded $9 million, prosecutors say.
A federal judge sentenced Gettel to seven years in prison and ordered him to pay $558,837 restitution. His sentence will run concurrent with a seven-year term he started serving last fall for a home loan modification scam that involved more than 10,000 victims nationwide who suffered more than $33 million in losses.
Related:
Salt Lake man faces federal charges in alleged telemarketing scam
A Salt Lake man already accused in an alleged home loan modification scam faces new federal charges for also allegedly running a telemarketing scheme.Four of Gettel's associates were also sentenced in the payment processing case.
Jamie White, 41, of St. George, and Peter Ian Seldin, 51, of Miami, Florida, will each serve 36 months in prison. William B. Rogers, 39, of Salt Lake City, received a 12-month prison term. All three were ordered to pay $32,500 in restitution.
Parker Crow, 26, of St. George, was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution.
