New To Las Vegas

In this space I’ve been writing about what I call “faux charities.” These are outfits that cold-call me on the telephone at the New To Las Vegas world headquarters asking for donations for what seem like charitable causes for health care or first responders. In reality, they aren’t charities at all. They are political action committees, or PACs, purportedly raising money to give to favored candidates for public office. Except that these faux charities spend almost all the money raised for fundraising and very little in political contributions, ostensibly the raison d’être for the organization in the first place.

PACs are very thinly regulated by the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service (a PAC can be registered with either agency), and basically not at all by most state charity regulators. This may be the reason why operators of some sketchy charities have moved into the “faux charity” PAC business. There simply is a lot less scrutiny and legal risk.

All this is background for a call I received recently from “Anna.” I put her name in quote because Anna wasn’t a real person, but a computer-generated voice likely monitored by a real human. “Anna” said she was soliciting a contribution for something called the U.S. Breast Cancer and Women’s Health Initiative. I asked where her organization was located. She said Washington, D.C. Continue reading →