The grandly named American Breast Cancer Coalition PAC is, to put it mildly, a misnomer. The dictionary definition of “coalition” connotes some kind of plurality. But ABCC-PAC has no employees, no volunteers and just one part-time board member/officer.
Nor has the organization ever fought breast cancer institutionally in any real way. This conclusion is based on its own federal filings–under oath, no less!–showing that 0% was spent toward that worthy cause from the millions of dollars raised using outside vendors during its entire four years of existence.
ABCC-PAC is itself a cancer, on society. The organization is what I call a faux charity. That’s a political action committee that presents like a meritorious exempt organization as it cold-calls unsuspecting Mom and Pop donors, in Las Vegas and elsewhere nationally, with a slick pitch and a quick ask. It’s counting on complete suckers at the other end of the phone line. Sadly, faux charities often find them. Some call these outfits scam charities.
At least in Las Vegas, where I live, ABCC-PAC gets away with this partly by flouting a Nevada law prohibiting fundraisers, including PACs, from soliciting in the state for, among other causes, “any … public health … purpose” without first registering with the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office (SOSO) and making financial filings. ABCC-PAC is not registered and never has been. SOSO has the power to issue cease-and-desist orders and levy civil financial penalties. But it never has done so, against ABCC-PAC or any of the dozens of faux charities likely making hundreds of thousands of similar calls a year to my fellow Nevadans.
How big a player in Nevada telemarketing is ABCC-PAC, which lists an address in Washington, D.C.? I have no idea. But it’s called me twice this year alone at the New To Las Vegas world headquarters. And I’m in just one of the Silver State’s 1.25 million households. Continue reading
