Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster's office filed a federal lawsuit Thursday charging the Automated Professional Marketing LLC and Safety Publications companies of Illinois with violating state and federal laws,when their employees called numerous Missouri residents who already were on the state's No-Call list, or who asked the company not to call again.
The lawsuit said the calls generally solicited charitable donations for organizations named Firefighters and Paramedics, Inc., Breast Cancer Survivors Foundation and VietNow National Headquarters.
"This telemarketer did more than just annoy people with 25,000 robocalls," Koster said in a news release announcing the lawsuit. "They also misled good-hearted consumers by implying all funds would go to the charity.
"In fact, the telemarketers kept more than 80 percent of the money collected."
The 23-page, four-count lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Missouri in St. Louis where "many of the events alleged ... occurred," and asks the court to find the companies and their two co-owners violated the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act as well as the state's Telemarketing Sales Rule, the No-Call Law and the Merchandising Practices Act.
The lawsuit also asks the federal court to order the companies and co-owners to pay "a civil penalty of up to $16,000 for each violation" of the Telemarketing Sales Rule, a "civil penalty of up to $5,000 for each and every violation" of the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act "that the court finds to have occurred," and a "minimum of $500 in civil penalties for each violation" of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act - with triple damages under the federal law if the court determines the defendants' "conduct was knowing and willful."
And the state wants the two companies and their co-owners to pay "all court, investigative and prosecution costs of this case."
The lawsuit didn't add all those potential penalties for one grand total.
But the state argues there were many violations of the three laws involved.
"During just a two-month period from September 2014 through October 2014, Defendants made more than 25,000 calls to Missouri residents registered on the Missouri No-Call list," the lawsuit charged.
"Consumers in Missouri reported receiving repeated phone calls, sometimes two to three times per day from various phone numbers with different names displayed on their caller identification system."
The callers told the consumers the donations would go directly to the charities, Koster said.
"Defendants used manipulative sales techniques," the lawsuit charged, "through repeated, harassing, unsolicited telephone calls which a reasonable consumer would consider an unfair practice, coercive or abusive of such consumers' right to privacy."
Koster's news release noted his office "has been aggressive in the fight against illegal telemarketers in state court, and filing this lawsuit in federal court is a logical next step to combat this escalating problem" - at least partly because "federal penalties are much stiffer than the state's."
The attorney general also reminded Missourians they can sign up for the Do-Not-Call hotline on the website, www.ago.mo.gov, or by calling 866-662-2551.
Consumers can report harassing solicitation at 1-866-buzzoff (1-866-289-9633).