Consumer First Alert: Deceptive charity operation shut down - WBAY

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MADISON, Wis. (WBAY) - Investigators in Wisconsin and across the country have announced that an operation that inundated people with deceptive calls and fake fundraising has been shut down.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul announced the Wisconsin Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and officials in 37 states have put a stop to robocalls from Associated Community Services.

According to the Wisconsin DOJ, nearly 43 million fraudulent calls were made in the state over a three year period - from January of 2016 to August of 2019. Officials add those calls were made to 1.6 million unique numbers, saying many of those calls were made repeatedly to the same phone numbers.

The online case summary states that nation wide, the operation contacted 67 million consumers with 1.3 billion deceptive charitable fundraising calls, adding most of them were illegal robocalls. According to the summary, the defendants collected more than $110 million.

Now - through court action - officials say $500,000 is being paid to the states to then be distributed to court approved non-profits.

Kaul issued this statement regarding the shut down of the operation:

“This operation that inundated people with deceptive calls has been shut down, and hundreds of thousands of dollars are going toward the important charitable causes that generous folks intended to support. We must continue working to hold scammers who flood our phone lines accountable.”

Officials are reminding consumers to not give out bank or personal information to random callers or e-mails.

In addition, you should research the charity at give.org.

You can also do an online search by typing in the charity’s name with the word “scam” or “complaint” and then review the results.

If you have information about a suspected charity scam, you can report it to the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions by CLICKING HERE.

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