May 8, 2003 2 min read

We’ve all heard the telephone pitches. The voice asks for help to aid some down-trodden group. Money, just a couple of dollars, will go along way, the telemarketer implies. But will it really? Consumers in Pennsylvania have the right to know whether 90 cents on every dollar goes to telemarketers rather than the actual charity. The Supreme Court this week in a ruling in an Illinois case upheld that states can enforce laws such as the one on Pennsylvania’s books.

The First Amendment, protecting free speech, does not give telemarketers or any fund-raisers the right to misrepresent how donations will be used.

“Like other forms of public deception, fraudulent charitable solicitation is unprotected,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote.The ruling is important in that it will allow states to prosecute – as Pennsylvania already does – telemarketers who deceive consumers by inflating the amount of money that goes to charitable cause rather than into the pockets of fund-raisers. It takes money to collect money, but consumers ought to be the judge of an amount that is acceptable to them.

Unfortunately, the gullible will still be taken. The law does not require solicitors to divulge the split between the professionals and the charity during the sales pitch. Consumers must remember to ask. And if the information is refused, take notes of who is calling and then place a call to the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Hotline at 1-800-441-2555.