(Des Moines, IA) -- Iowa's joining a national effort to block charitable fundraising calls, the Federal Trade Commission says are deceptive. Attorneys general say a Michigan company has collected more than 110-(m) million dollars using harassing, and illegal robocalls. The A-Gs say Associated Community Services (ACS) duped Americans into donating to charities that failed to provide services.
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller has joined the Federal Trade Commission and 46 agencies from 38 states and the District of Columbia to stop the operation. The AGs maintain A-C-S bombarded 67 million consumers with 1.3 billion deceptive charitable fundraising calls.
The complaint names ACS and its sister companies Central Processing Services and Community Services Appeal; their owners, Dick Cole, Bill Burland, Barbara Cole, and Amy Burland; and ACS senior managers Nikole Gilstorf, Tony Lia, John Lucidi, and Scot Stepek. In addition, the complaint names two fundraising companies allegedly operated by Gilstorf and Lia as spin-offs of ACS: Directele and The Dale Corp.
“This case is another example of why robocalls are more than an annoyance. Scam telemarketers harm legitimate charities as well as generous Americans who want to help those groups,” Attorney General Miller said.
The complaint states the organizations spent very little or no money on the charitable causes they claimed to support — in some cases as little as one-tenth of 1 percent. The defendants kept as much 90 cents of every dollar they solicited from donors on behalf of the charities.
The complaint alleges that the defendants claimed to support homeless veterans, victims of house fires, breast cancer patients, children with autism, and other causes. ACS was also the major fundraiser for the sham Cancer Fund charities, shut down by the FTC and states in 2015.
The complaint also charges ACS with making harassing calls, calling more than 1.3 million phone numbers more than 10 times in a single week and 7.8 million numbers more than twice in an hour. More than 500 phone numbers were even called 5,000 times or more.
(Photo: Getty Images)