Cops protest phone 'scam' Cops protest phone 'scam' (April 16, 2004)

Local Hispanic families say telemarketers used threats

By Julie O'Shea

Several low-income, Spanish-speaking families claim they have been receiving nightly, harassing phone calls from an "aggressive" and "misleading" telemarketing firm telling residents if they don't donate, city police won't rush to their homes during emergencies.

Mountain View police spokesperson Jim Bennett, however, said this is not something his department is soliciting, adding "it sounds like a scam." And Chief Scott Vermeer has asked that the matter be investigated immediately.

But John McCallum, president of Midwest Publishing-AZ -- the Arizona-based telemarketing firm that has represented the California Narcotics Officers' Association for nearly a decade -- disputed the allegations. He said his company normally avoids calling non-English speaking residents and generally makes a point to cross off low-income households from the call list. All phone conversations at Midwest are taped and reviewed regularly. McCallum said he looked into the allegations raised by Mountain View residents and found nothing wrong with the way his employees had acted.

If someone is caught impersonating the police or acting inappropriately over the phone, "you're immediately fired," McCallum said.

"There is just no room for that in our industry," he said, adding, "It's telemarketing, and occasionally you have a telemarketer having a bad day."

Patricia Soria can attest to that. The mother of two young girls recently had a phone installed at her Mountain View home for the first time in her life when she began getting daily calls from Midwest telemarketers about a month ago.

Soria said the telemarketers identified themselves simply as "the police" and asked her to send in a $25 donation. Soria said she assumed they were representatives of the Mountain View police department. When she told one telemarketer that she couldn't afford to donate, Soria said the man suggested a payment plan of $5 a week, adding that if she didn't pay it off in a month, the bill would double.

Shortly after, Soria received a "reminder statement" in the mail with an invoice in the amount of $25. The Federal Trade Commission says it's illegal to send out an "invoice" that's actually a solicitation for a donation.

Soria said one of the men told her: "We are going to keep calling you, and you better not hang up or we will call you right back." Another said "if I didn't pay, he was going to come over to my house," Soria recalled Monday.

"I'm really paranoid about answering my phone now," she said. "I was ready to disconnect it."

An informal poll taken during a March 30 adult education class where Soria is a student showed that three out of four low-income, Spanish-speaking parents had paid money to "the police" last year. A teacher helped students register on the national "do not call" list.

"They were all led to believe they had to (pay) or that they would have trouble with the police if they didn't pay," wrote Marcela de Carvalho, the director of English learner programs at the Mountain View-Whisman School District. She was writing to the city attorney on behalf of the adult students in the program.

De Carvalho's letter provoked Chief Vermeer to write to the president of the California Narcotics Officers' Association, Bob Hussey, last week.

"Realizing this is but one side of the story, I cannot support the type of aggressive and unethical telemarketing that our school administrator has reported," Vermeer stated in the letter. "Please help me keep this type of unsavory activity out of my community."

Midwest Publishing retains 85 percent of all annual donations it secures for CNOA. Of the $1.7 million Midwest collected for CNOA, the union pocketed only $185,998, according to finance statements released by CNOA this week.

"You get people who make allegations," Hussey said. "I have found them (Midwest) to be very, very professional."

A February 2001 story entitled "Police union raised money it didn't need," which ran in the Denver Post as part of an investigative series, paints a different picture. The report stated Midwest telemarketers working on behalf of the Denver Police Protective Association collected more than $384,000 over three years from city residents that were never needed. The police union received only $63,558 of the total collected.

De Carvalho asked: "Is it of concern to anyone that the people that are being targeted by CNOA are poor, typically do not have checking accounts and are sending unaccountable cash through the mail?"

Midwest's McCallum said his firm doesn't target a certain demographic. And CNOA's Hussey said his organization carefully investigated Midwest before signing it on because he'd had trouble with telemarketers in the past.

Still Soria said she continues to receive calls from Midwest, despite placing her name on the national "do not call" list. She said a friend of hers who lives in Sunnyvale has paid $600 to Midwest over the last year, thinking the telemarketers were with her local police department.

Soria said her friend had to take a second job at McDonald's to pay for the donations.

E-mail Julie O'Shea at joshea@mv-voice.com

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