The Wyoming Attorney General, along with the Federal Trade Commission and 46 agencies from 38 states and the District of Columbia, have stopped a massive tele-funding operation that has bombarded 67-million consumers with 1.3-billion unsolicited and deceptive charitable fundraising calls. Altogether, the organizations and individuals involved collected more than $110 million using their deceptive solicitations.
In Wyoming alone, defendants made over 3.7 million calls to around 152,000 unique phone numbers over a roughly three-year span. Virtually all of defendants’ phone calls and direct mail advertisements purported to solicit donations for sympathetic causes such as financial assistance for cancer patients, housing for homeless veterans, victims of house fires, and children with autism.
Unfortunately, the charities purporting to represent these causes frequently spent little if any money on their advertised charitable purposes. The calls have usually come in the form of robo-calls with pre-recorded messages. Under the settlements, all existing corporate entities involved agreed to permanently dissolve their existence.
