Federal Agency and 10 States Act to Curb Deceptive Charity Telephone Appeals

Ten states have filed a total of 34 legal actions in recent weeks in cases involving deceptive charity appeals by professional solicitors. In addition, the Federal Trade Commission has filed five federal lawsuits alleging deceptive practices by telemarketers.

The actions were announced last week as part of the commission’s latest campaign to crack down on fund-raising fraud. The campaign — also sponsored by the American Association of Retired Persons and charity regulators in 40 states — is aimed at telephone solicitors who misrepresent ties with charities. It is also intended to help consumers make better giving decisions.

Americans over the age of 25 receive on average nearly two telephone solicitations each week, according to the results of a survey released at the press conference by the retired-persons association. And four out of five of the 1,683 people surveyed made at least one donation to charity in the last year as a result of a mail or telephone solicitation, the survey found.

Nevertheless, according to the survey, people are largely suspicious of telephone solicitations. Nearly seven out of ten respondents said they are not confident that callers represent the charity they say they do. And 40 per cent said they are “not at all confident” that callers are legitimate.

The survey also found that the likelihood of people responding to telephone solicitations depends on the type of charity. Forty-two per cent said they are likely to give if the call is made in behalf of a firefighters’ organization; 39 per cent would give to a police or sheriffs’ group; 35 per cent would give to a veterans’ organization; and 33 per cent would donate money for disaster relief.

The anti-fraud campaign is the latest in a series of campaigns that has been sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission over the years to encourage public-education efforts and highlight law-enforcement actions. But last week’s campaign kicked off with an interesting twist: a “reverse boiler room.”

Borrowing the term used to describe the operations of illicit telemarketers, the American Association of Retired Persons set up a phone bank to call people to teach them how to avoid scams. Volunteers called people whose phone numbers appeared on lists confiscated from fraudulent telemarketers by the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

For more information about Operation Missed Giving, go to http://www.ftc.gov. For a free copy of the results of the A.A.R.P. survey, write to the association’s Research Group at 601 E Street, N.W., Washington 20049.