Hillary Clinton Backer's Firm Alleged to Aid Scammers in Bilking Gullible Seniors

Clinton Backer's Firm Alleged to Aid Scammers
By JOSH GERSTEIN

Staff Reporter of the Sun
May 22, 2007

A Nebraska entrepreneur facing allegations that his firm does business with scam artists targeting the elderly, Vinod Gupta, has directed more than $3 million in the past decade to political campaigns and projects connected with President Clinton and Senator Clinton.

Mr. Gupta's company, infoUSA, Inc., repeatedly rented marketing databases to unscrupulous individuals who used the lists to engage in fraud, according to the New York Times. A front-page article in the Sunday paper said the company promoted a list called "Suffering Seniors," which featured ailing older people, and other lists of "Elderly Opportunity Seekers" and those deemed to be "gullible."

Mr. Gupta, the chairman and CEO of infoUSA, has been one of the most generous benefactors to causes affiliated with the Clintons. He donated $2 million to a national millennium celebration organized by Mrs. Clinton's White House office, according to a book published by her chief fund-raiser, Terence McAuliffe. Mr. Gupta also gave $1 million for the construction of Mr. Clinton's presidential library in Little Rock, Ark.

In 2000, Mr. Gupta gave $100,000 to support Mrs. Clinton's Senate bid and hosted a fund-raiser in his home that raised $100,000 more. "She was so good," he said of Mrs. Clinton's talk there, according to the Omaha World-Herald. "I think she is smarter than the president."

more...http://www.nysun.com/article/54982

An assistant attorney general in Iowa who investigated how the firm markets and distributes its data files disputed the company's assertion that it cooperated completely with the probe. "It's because they weren't cooperative that we had to go to court," the attorney, Steve St. Clair, told The New York Sun yesterday. He labeled the firm's claim that the investigation is closed "self-serving and speculative on their part." He also said the probe never cleared the company. "There was no point at which we communicated satisfaction that they'd done nothing wrong," he said.

Mr. St. Clair said he never saw evidence that infoUSA circulated a list of "Suffering Seniors" but said it did offer lists such as "cash-hungry individuals." "When you look at some of the phrases they did use, it's hard to distinguish them," he said.

An attorney at the University of California who studies privacy and marketing issues, Chris Hoofnagle, said an infoUSA subsidiary has promoted lists of consumers described as "mature" and "impulsive." "‘Mature' and ‘impulsive' are keywords for ‘Come rob me, come swindle me," Mr. Hoofnagle said. He said other lists "reinforce racial and class-based stereotypes."

http://www.nysun.com/article/54982?page_no=2

May 22, 2007
2 Firms Tied to Phone Lists Will Review Their Policies

By CHARLES DUHIGG
Two companies accused by state and federal regulators of doing business with suspected telemarketing thieves released statements yesterday pledging to examine and change their business practices.

The two companies — InfoUSA, one of the nation’s largest compilers of consumer information, and Wachovia Bank, the nation’s fourth largest bank — were identified in an article in The New York Times on Sunday as having made it possible for thieves to defraud millions of elderly and other Americans.

InfoUSA was singled out yesterday by Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat who is running for president, as deserving scrutiny. In 2005, state regulators in Iowa collected documents indicating that had sold lists containing the names of older Americans to telemarketing criminals. Senator Obama and Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, have asked the Federal Trade Commission to step up efforts to protect elderly consumers.

“Senator Obama has serious concerns that InfoUSA perpetuated a fraud on seniors, and he has contacted the appropriate executive agency to ensure that consumer protection laws are being vigorously enforced and seniors are protected from telemarketing schemes,” said Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the senator.

InfoUSA’s chief executive, Vinod Gupta, disputed that characterization of his company in an interview yesterday.

“We have not perpetuated any illegal activity,” Mr. Gupta said. “We have over four million customers. If someone buys a gun and shoots someone, is the gun dealer responsible? No. We ask that our customers follow the law.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/business/22tele.html

Original article in Sunday's New York Times...

May 20, 2007
Bilking the Elderly, With a Corporate Assist

By CHARLES DUHIGG

The thieves operated from small offices in Toronto and hangar-size rooms in India. Every night, working from lists of names and phone numbers, they called World War II veterans, retired schoolteachers and thousands of other elderly Americans and posed as government and insurance workers updating their files.

Then, the criminals emptied their victims’ bank accounts.

Richard Guthrie, a 92-year-old Army veteran, was one of those victims. He ended up on scam artists’ lists because his name, like millions of others, was sold by large companies to telemarketing criminals, who then turned to major banks to steal his life’s savings.

Mr. Guthrie, who lives in Iowa, had entered a few sweepstakes that caused his name to appear in a database advertised by infoUSA, one of the largest compilers of consumer information. InfoUSA sold his name, and data on scores of other elderly Americans, to known lawbreakers, regulators say.

InfoUSA advertised lists of “Elderly Opportunity Seekers,” 3.3 million older people “looking for ways to make money,” and “Suffering Seniors,” 4.7 million people with cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. “Oldies but Goodies” contained 500,000 gamblers over 55 years old, for 8.5 cents apiece. One list said: “These people are gullible. They want to believe that their luck can change.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/business/20tele.html