Pa. attorney general heralds crackdown on telefunding operation

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro has announced a settlement involving a telefunding operation that obtained money from people under the pretense of fundraising for charities.

Since 2008, Associated Community Services collected more than $110 million by bombarding more than 67 million Americans with 1.3 billion deceptive phone calls on behalf of organizations claiming to support breast cancer patients, victims of house fires, children with autism, homeless veterans and other charitable causes, according to a news release from Mr. Shapiro’s office.

“The settlement will ensure that this scam gets hung up on permanently, that the recovered money gets properly allocated, and that the shareholders of these companies are never able to prey on Pennsylvanians again,” Mr. Shapiro said.

Pennsylvanians were hit with more than 61 million calls from Jan. 1, 2016, through Aug. 31, 2019, with thousands of phone numbers called multiple times per week, day and even hour, the news release stated.

Older adults are frequently targeted.

“AARP applauds the action taken by Attorney General Shapiro and federal officials to stop a huge telephone charity scam operation that has plagued Pennsylvania residents for years,” AARP Pennsylvania State Director Bill Johnston-Walsh said.

Mr. Shapiro’s office, the Federal Trade Commission, and 46 agencies from 37 states and the District of Columbia entered into the settlement with ACS and related defendants.

It is alleged that ACS kept up to 85% of the money raised and was aware that the organizations it fundraised for spent as little as 0.1% of the proceeds on charitable donations.