Courtesy of Florence Klein, Founder, SilverPlanet.com

Many legitimate charities solicit donations to support military veterans, police, and firefighter organizations, but not all of these “charities” are legitimate. While it might be easy to say no to some phone solicitors, the ones who sound like they’re helping people you respect are the hardest of all to turn down; they can’t possibly be scams.

But many of them are. In May, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a nationwide crackdown on fraudulent telemarketers claiming to help police, firefighters, and veterans. “Operation False Charity” brings together 61 attorneys general, secretaries of state, and other law enforcers of 49 states and the District of Columbia, along with the FTC.

“All of us share a deep trust and respect for our law enforcement officers, firefighters, and military service members,” said Attorney General Chris Koster of Missouri. “The attorneys general across the country will not stand idly by while greedy telemarketers take advantage of that trust and respect.”

The FTC’s announcement included a report that 76 law enforcement actions were taken against 32 fund-raising companies, 22 nonprofits or purported nonprofits on whose behalf funds were solicited, and 31 individuals. Two of the FTC’s cases involve defendants who allegedly tricked consumers into giving by claiming that donations would support police or firefighters disabled in the line of duty, often in the donors’ communities, or that the donations would assist military families in need. Consumers were also misled about how much of the money would go to those causes.

In one case, the FTC alleged that three sham nonprofit organizations—American Veterans Relief Foundation, Inc. (AVRF), Coalition of Police and Sheriffs, Inc. (COPS), and Disabled Firefighters Fund (DFF), all based at the same address in Santa Ana, California—were created almost entirely to provide profits for the individual defendants and the for-profit fund-raisers they hired. Solicitors calling on behalf of AVRF, for example, falsely claimed that the money they were raising would support the families of soldiers fighting overseas through a program it called “Operation Home Front.” This bogus program is not connected to the genuine nonprofit Operation Homefront, Inc., a national organization with 30 chapters across the country that provides real support to the families of troops and gets high ratings from watchdog groups. To read more about all of the cases, visit the FTC’s Web site.

Every year, more than 130,000 people call Better Business Bureaus nationwide wanting to know how a police, firefighter, or veterans’ charity stacks up to the bureau’s Standards for Charity Accountability, according to the BBB. The bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance—which monitors national charities—has concerns about practices that are “common” to police, firefighter, and veterans’ organizations, including high fund-raising costs, with little remaining to assist the actual cause; excessive pressure in telephone appeals; and lack of clarity about what the programs’ donations will be assisting.