Mission of yet another unregistered ‘faux charity’ trolling in Las Vegas: women cops

Posted on by October 29, 2021
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faux charityOn October 1, a new Nevada law took effect requiring, among other things, that political action committees soliciting contributions in the state for the “benefit of law enforcement, firefighting or other public safety personnel” first register and file a financial statement or face penalties. Since then, judging from calls to the New To Las Vegas world headquarters, the number of “faux charities” thumbing their noses at the state’s main missing-in-action regulators, the Secretary of State’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office, has exploded. A faux charity–my term–sounds like a charity but isn’t and spends most of the money raised in fundraising expense rather than on the stated mission.

The latest example was a call I received earlier this week from “Emma” seeking a contribution for what she called Americans for Female Officers, based in Washington, D.C. I use quote marks because “Emma” wasn’t a real person but a computer-generated voice using what is known as soundboard technology. Our conservation ended shortly after I asked if the cause–whose website, started less than six months ago, has a nifty logo of a female officer wrapped in a red-white-and-blue-flag–had registered with Nevada.

I’ll keep this one short. Americans for Female Officers is a name used by a political action committee, United Women’s Health Alliance PAC. Neither Americans for Female Officers nor UWHC PAC is listed as registered on online sites maintained by the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office. As I wrote here recently, according to its filings with the Federal Election Commission, from its founding in August 2020 to June 30, 2021, UWHA PAC, which also solicits in Nevada using the name Ovarian Cancer Awareness Initiative PAC (also unregistered), received a total of about $825,000 in contributions, but spent $650,000 in fundraising expense. That’s a fundraising efficiency–the percent of donations remaining after subtracting the cost of generating them–of just 21%. Put another way, of every dollar given to UWHA PAC, 79 cents went straight out of door for fundraising. UWHA PAC also made absolutely no political contributions.

How many would-be donors would find this satisfactory?

I sent an email through the Americans for Female Officers/United Women’s Health Alliance PAC website seeking comment on these issues. I’ll update this post if I hear anything back. However, based on my long experience the chances of that happening is roughly the same as Sean Hannity endorsing Joe Biden.

In a state with an economy based on gambling, I’d say UWHA PAC is betting on the sad track record of Nevada’s two charitable regulators. Historically, this has been a good bet for sketchy fundraisers. Like “Emma.”

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Ignoring new law, unregistered ‘faux charities’ keep soliciting in Las Vegas

Posted on by October 21, 2021
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faux charitiesThe telephone cold-caller to the New To Las Vegas world headquarters identified himself as “John.” He solicited a donation for Back Blue Lives PAC, which he described as a political action committee based in Alexandria, Va., supporting law enforcement.

“Our police officers are being defunded, demoralized and disrespected,” “John” sermonized in an impassioned pitch that sounded very much like it was coming from a charity rather than a political operative. “They put their lives on the line very day without support of many politicians … It’s time to say enough is enough. Can you help protect our police officers’ lives and rights?”

“John” was not a real person but a computer-generated voice using what is known as soundboard technology. That’s why I’m enclosing his name in quotation marks.

When I said I’d consider a contribution, “John” immediately professed his gratitude and switched me to “Mary,” another fake voice, so she could record details, like my name and address, to legally threaten me in the event I committed to a pledge and didn’t pay up. I told “Mary” that a new law in Nevada seemed to require any organization soliciting money for a law-enforcement cause to first register with the state and file a financial statement. I asked if Back Blue Lives PAC was so registered.

“That is a really great question,” Mary replied. “Let me get my supervisor.”

Her supervisor–a real person for once, but probably the person controlling the soundboard voices–came on the line. I repeated my question asking about a Nevada registration. “Okay,” she said.

Then–click. She hung up.

This is yet another example of what I call a “faux charity.” That’sa cause whose pitch on the phone sounds like it is raising money for a meritorious cause like fighting an illness or supporting law enforcement but is just a PAC spending almost all the receipts on fundraising and overhead, with organizers likely getting something on the side.

For some reason, I don’t think Back Blue Lives PAC is registered to solicit in Nevada, especially since the organization did not come up in the Nevada Secretary of State’s online PAC search or business entity search databases. And for some reason, I don’t think that Nevada regulators are going to do much about it.

Continue reading →

Will new law slow ‘faux charity’ pitches in Las Vegas and Nevada?

Posted on by October 12, 2021
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faux charity pitches in Las VegasSee update at end of story

A new Nevada law that took effect on October 1 might cut down on or even eliminate the large number of “faux charity” cold-calling money solicitations made in the Silver Silver. I say “might” because Nevada regulators don’t have the greatest track record of protecting the donating public by policing dodgy charitable appeals or, as I will point out again, even enforcing existing law in this area.

Regular visitors to this space are quite aware of what I mean by a faux charity. It is a cause whose pitch on the phone sounds like it is raising money for a meritorious cause like fighting an illness or supporting law enforcement. But in fact it’s a political action committee–often conveniently omitting the letters PAC when making the telephone pitch–run by shadowy folks that take in donations very little of which are then spent for campaign contributions, which isn’t a charitable purpose, either. Almost all the donations go to fundraising and overhead, with the organizers raking off undisclosed sums.

Previous Nevada law required most charitable organizations soliciting federally tax-deductible contributions in Nevada to register with the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office and make some disclosures. But contributions to PACs by law aren’t tax-deductible, so faux charity PACs didn’t fall under the charitable solicitation laws of Nevada–a giant loophole.

Nationally, most PACs are required to make publicly available disclosures to federal agencies, but they can be hard to find and analyze. Nevada has laws requiring state registration of certain PACs doing business in the state. But I have yet to see a Nevada registration of a faux charity PAC calling me, most of which list addresses in Washington, D.C., and other far-away places. Continue reading →

Forbes 400 roster in Las Vegas falls to two

Posted on by October 7, 2021
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Forbes 400 roster in Las Vegas When I became New To Las Vegas five years ago, the annual Forbes 400 list of America’s richest folks contained nine individuals from the Sin City area. As it turned out, that was something of a peak year for the local count, as the basis for much of the vast wealth around Las Vegas–casinos, entertainment, hospitality, that kind of stuff–couldn’t keep up with fortunes being generated by big finance and technology brains elsewhere. Astonishingly, there now are more billionaires in the U.S. not on the Forbes list than on it.

The 40th edition of the Forbes 400 was just published. The Las Vegas Rich List contingent is now down to two. Continue reading →

Las Vegas COVID-19 per-capita death rate still double that of U.S.

Posted on by September 29, 2021
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Las Vegas COVID-19 per-capita death rateWith 0.7% of the national population, Clark County, Nevada (home to Las Vegas and the New to Las Vegas world headquarters) had 1.4% of all the COVID-19 deaths in the country yesterday (29 of 2,026). That’s still double the national per-capita death rate.

In one respect this is good news. During the summer, the per-capita death rate in Clark County/Las Vegas was more than 10 times the national rate. But the local bump in my view is still too high for a place utterly dependent on tourism.

A story right now on the Las Vegas Review-Journal website cites the 29 local deaths, but doesn’t mention how bad that is compared to the entire nation. For some reason, aside from this space, this comparison is rarely mentioned in the Las Vegas media, and, of course, not by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the main local cheerleader for tourism.

Visitors, still be aware.

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Faux cancer charity pitches Las Vegas with variation on a theme

Posted on by September 27, 2021
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Faux cancer charity pitches Las VegasThe cheery female voice–I didn’t get her name–recently cold-calling the New To Las Vegas world headquarters was seeking a donation for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Initiative. This is yet another cancer cause I hadn’t heard of–there are thousands of them out there. Unfortunately, in my long experience the ones calling out of the blue often are up to little good.

I asked where the organization was headquartered. “Washington, D.C.” she quickly replied. Okay, I said, how old is the organization?

There was a pause. A long pause. Then, “I can’t answer that type of question.” She hung up even before I got a chance to ask for her name. Gee, it’s not like I was inquiring how to deal with the Taliban.

Maybe she didn’t want to tell me that the Initiative was likely less than seven months old, judging from the registration date of its website (March 3, 2021) that I quickly looked up. Or maybe it was that she really didn’t exist as a person, but was just a computer-generated voice controlled by a real human somewhere using what is known as soundboard technology. Such callers are known to cut and run at the first suggestion of donor difficulty.

Whatever the reason, after a few more minutes of Internet research I realized a few more things: (1) Despite its call-to-action name, the Initiative wasn’t a charity, but simply a political action committee, or PAC, whose stated mission is to make political contributions; (2) United Women’s Health Alliance PAC, the parent organization controlling the Initiative and which also solicits under other names, during its entire life has spent nearly 80% of all the contributions received in fundraising expense, something would-be donors might be very unhappy to learn, (3) no money–not even one dime–ever has ever spent in political contributions. Talk about cheap!

Plus (4), this was the fourth call I’ve gotten in less than a year from UWHA PAC causes. Two came on the very same day in June on behalf of something called U.S. Breast Cancer and Women’s Health Initiative PAC. You can read about those calls by clicking here and the earlier one by clicking here. So I am adding the Ovarian Cancer Awareness Initiative as a candidate for my list of America’s Stupidest Charities. The criteria is simple: exempt organizations that call me asking for money despite a previous critical post by me about the organization. UWHA PAC and the Breast Cancer and Women’s Health Initiatives PAC already are candidates. You can view the entire list elsewhere on this page.

I call these outfits a faux charity because they sound like charities in making their pitches but really aren’t. Rather, it’s all simply a variation on a theme. The founder/treasurer of UWHA PAC, Audrey Stephanie Mastroianni, has a rather iffy past on the charitable front, as I have detailed before and will briefly summarize again below. Continue reading →