Companies hit snag with sales of T-shirts
Jeff Adair, Milford Daily News, February 14, 2004

FRAMINGHAM -- A national missing children's organization that recently opened an office in Framingham ran into hot water last year in two states due to questionable fund-raising tactics of a marketing company it hired to raise money.

The Tampa-based Child Protection Education of America has co-venture contracts with more than two dozen marketing companies across the country that sell T-shirts, videos and other items with the nonprofit's name and logo.

Two hidden-camera investigations by television stations in Pittsburgh, Pa., and Columbus, Ohio, showed that company sales staff failed to disclose that only 5 percent went to the nonprofit, and making several false claims about CPEA's program.

Last November, one of the companies, Elite Promotional Group, and its subsidiaries were ordered by the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to stop soliciting money because it had refused to register with the state's Bureau of Charitable Organizations.

CPEA, which recently opened a northeast branch office at 945 Concord St. in Framingham, distributes photographs of missing children, and runs finger printing and child safety events.

Vince DiNova, executive director of the agency, this week admitted that two marketing companies misled customers.

" Both of those companies are no longer working for us," he said. "We require that they disclose the amount of money that comes to us and to tell customers that they are a marketing company and not the charity. In their cases they did not do that."

CPEA was founded in 2002 by DiNova whose cousin, Dorothy "Dee Dee" Scofield has been missing since 1976. She was 12 years old when she disappeared.

The agency opened a few months after Missing Children's HELP Center, where DiNova previously worked, went bankrupt after 20 years. That agency, founded and run by DiNova's mother, was $288,000 in debt.

The HELP Center, which had a solid reputation, ran into trouble after joining forces with the National Child Safety Council, a Michigan group that wanted to create a missing children's conglomerate to rival the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Bret Vinocur, president of findmissingkids.com, tipped off reporters about the fund-raising tactics. Last June, NBC4 in Columbus ran a piece about CPEA.

Vinocur said he first learned about the company when a friend bought a T-shirt thinking that part of the the money was benefiting his nonprofit.

" I got a shirt and did my research and I found that only a nickel of every dollar is going to the charity."

Vinocur said that when he ran into a salesperson, a college student working on straight commission, he was given so much erroneous information he couldn't just sit on it.

He said while the marketing company sold the shirts the charity still bears some of the blame.

" They were enabling them," he said. "CPEA was well aware of what they were doing."

From a legal standpoint, he said, there's nothing wrong with 5 percent cut for the charity as long as the customer is told, he said.

" They're preying on people who are unaware. It's a moral issue more than a legal issue."

The TV investigation by WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh showed sales staff falsely claming that CPEA does the missing kids cards mailed to homes. One salesman admitted on camera that direct donations they collected for CPEA were pocketed, instead
of being passed to the charity.

DiNova said CPEA is still working with marketing companies around the country, including one in Woburn, that are licensed to sell T-shirts, DNA kits, safety videos and other products with the CPEA logo.

He said all new licensing agreements say that CPEA will get 20 percent.

"When the program is run correctly and disclosure being done, everything is cool," he said. "'The products are great products."

Under the typical scenario, the marketing companies get permission to set up a table in the foyer or outside of a grocery or retail chain. The tables include licensed items that benefit CPEA and others that the company keeps all to itself.

The companies, which pick the products to sell, are required to have a placard on the table and place a disclosure sticker on the items explaining that 20 percent goes to CPEA.

"We're not going to put the charity's reputation and our great name in jeopardy," said DiNova. "Our reputation is pretty good out there...Once again, we're register with every state and every state this program is run we're require to do an annual recertification. We do have a solicitation license to run this program (in Massachusetts)."