Sure, you make contributions to community groups. That's what small businesses are expected to do as good, local citizens. But if you were vague about what the group does -- or didn't remember promising the donation in the first place -- you may have been scammed.

The Federal Trade Commission said last week it won a restraining order to shut down three ad telemarketers based in Fort Wayne, Ind., that allegedly convinced businesses in at least seven states that they owed money for advertisements in publications run by civic or charitable groups. According to the complaint, the ad agencies told owners that someone in their company had authorized the ads, and it was time to pay up.

In reality, says the FTC, no one had ever ordered any ads. As for the publications, they almost never appeared and lacked any affiliation with a charity.

The names of the ad agencies? If you were victimized, you probably never heard those during the pitch, but the FTC accusations center on Omi Advertising, Tristate Advertising Unlimited, and TEMM Marketing. Do they deny the charges? Hard to tell, since nobody answers the phone at TEMM. As for the other two, a recorded message says their phone numbers had been disconnected.

Small-business scams are hardly new, but the most common have revolved around phony invoices for office products (toner for copiers is a favorite) and up-front "finders fees" to set up loans that never materialize. In this case, the pitch was a blatant appeal to civic duty, according to the FTC, which said the scam worked like this:

Business owners were called by one of the three ad firms and told that someone in their company had authorized ads in publications such as the Substance Abuse Activity Guide or the Health and Child Safety Guide. Other versions mentioned groups like Disabled Firefighters and the American Deputy Sheriffs Association. Those certainly sound worthy, and the pitch said that supporting these publications was an opportunity to support a good community cause and burnish a company's local image, since the publications would be widely distributed in their region to places like preschools and child-care centers.

The promised publications often weren't distributed. But that was almost beside the point: The FTC says small businesses faced repeated billings for more ads, regardless of whether they were authorized. And the telemarketers didn't stop there: Sometimes they'd threaten to file lawsuits, to hire collection agencies, or to report the debt to business credit bureaus, which would hurt the victim's ability to do business. One firm even went so far as to send a collector around every week to deliver bills and demand payment. An FTC spokesman said the firms operated in Indiana, Illinois, South Carolina, Michigan, Kentucky, Georgia, and Missouri.

"Legitimate community service efforts will suffer if these tactics are not stopped," says a statement from Jodie Bernstein, director for the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. At this rate, you'll have to start doing the same due diligence on community groups that you do with business partners.

By Rick Green in New York

To: LAW