Editorial: If the phone rings, think twice about donating to charity

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It takes a pretty charitable person to refrain from hanging up on a telemarketer. But if you've ever given money over the phone, chances are, you got ripped off big-time.

"Our No. 1 tip to donors is, 'Just hang up the phone,' " said Sandra Miniutti of Charity Navigator, a watchdog group in New Jersey.

Only recently, New Jersey’s Division of Consumer Affairs shut down a shady Towaco-based telemarketer that was calling on behalf of unregistered charities, and keeping no records on where donations actually went.

Still, people trust charities and have a hard time saying no to local veterans, injured police officers or sick children. And who would ever guess that even big, respected groups such as the American Cancer Society let telemarketers to keep most — if not all — of your donation?

That's what an eye-opening investigation by Bloomberg Markets Magazine found. In fiscal year 2010, a telemarketing company called InfoCision gathered $5.3 million for the society, and not one penny went to fund cancer research or help patients. It all went to the telemarketers.

And that kind, appealing voice on the other end of the line may be lying, even though it’s illegal. Solicitors might identify themselves as “volunteers.” They’re not; they’re paid telemarketing employees. Even worse, they promise that 70 cents or more of every dollar goes to programs and research — in scripts approved by reputable charities — when it’s often as little as 15 percent of the money raised, the magazine discovered.

Ever give to callers for the American Heart Association, American Lung Association, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, March of Dimes Foundation or the National Multiple Sclerosis Society?

They use the same deceptive telemarketing company. Charities see little downside to accepting contracts that allow InfoCision to keep most or all of the money raised, because their groups get the names of people who might contribute again. Yet in the meantime, your generous donation is flushed down the drain — unless you wanted to contribute to InfoCision's founder, Gary Taylor, who lives on a 28-acre wooded estate in Ohio while the telemarketers earn $7.40-an-hour minimum wage.

Naturally, Taylor calls himself a job creator. When he complained about early efforts to begin the National Do Not Call Registry, which allows people to block calls from for-profit solicitors, Taylor said the problem was “excessive governmental regulation.”

Yet all the while, companies including his have been leeching off willing charities, taking money away from cancer victims, diabetics, battered animals and babies with birth defects.

And, above all, from people like you.

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