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Iowa Hangs Up on Charity Telemarketers

Attorney General cuts off solicitors for abusive practices

November 17, 2008
Though you may be on the government's Do Not Call list, that doesn't stop telemarketers, allegedly working for charities, from dialing for dollars. And if you're not careful, you could be writing a check that benefits the telemarketer more than any worthwhile cause.

In Iowa, Attorney General Tom Miller has obtained an order stopping Midwest Publishing-DN, Inc. -- a paid professional fundraising company based in Phoenix – from using abusive and misleading practices in its fundraising calls and solicitations to Iowans.

Two principals of the operation also were named in the court injunction: president and owner John F. McCallum of Phoenix, AZ, and vice-president Stanislaw Burzynski of Woodbury, MN.

Miller said Midwest Publishing makes many thousands of telemarketing calls each year into Iowa on behalf of Operation Lookout, the Firefighters Charitable Foundation, and the Iowa Narcotics Officers Association. The solicitation calls, he says, are made from a phone room in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Miller noted that although the callers stressed that donations would be put to good use, Midwest Publishing kept 85 cents of every dollar donated as compensation for its telemarketing services, and gave only 15 cents of each dollar to the charitable organizations.

"Midwest Publishing is prohibited from implying that its telemarketers are members of the charitable organization, rather than paid fundraisers, and from misrepresenting that donations will be used locally," Miller said.

Not only are the callers not policemen or fire fitghers, Miller says, they're more likely to on parole or probation for various offenses, including drug offenses and theft-related crimes.

In addition to the $30,000 the defendants must pay to the State, the judgment provided that a further payment of $100,000 would come due if the defendants violate the Court's order in the next three years.

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