The United States is slowly coming out of the coronavirus shutdown. Businesses are reopening–like casinos today here in Las Vegas–and folks are going back to work. But that swelling workforce apparently includes those who labor in that section of the cold-calling telemarketing industry pushing would-be charitable-minded donors to make contributions–very little of which will go to the stated mission.
After several months of silence–hey, one might catch COVID-19 in boiler-room call centers–the phones at the New To Las Vegas world headquarters have started ringing regularly again with such pitches.
Following a trend first noted here two years ago, the calls have been on behalf of political action committees, or PACs. These, of course, aren’t charities at all, but conduits for political contributions and sometimes lobbying. They masquerade as charities. No more than pennies on the dollar are spent on the seemingly laudable mission. For the often-shadowy figures behind these enterprises, a big benefit is extremely light scrutiny by one of the most toothless regulatory agencies we have, the Federal Election Commission, as well as virtually no scrutiny at all by state charity regulators and private charitable watchdogs. Continue reading
