The ORIGINAL bust on this SAME company.
FIRST BUST: FBI, postal service raid Largo business
Officials are tight-lipped about the afternoon raid of Bay Area Business Council offices, where items were confiscated and ordered sealed by a court.
By CHRIS TISCH
St. Petersburg Times, published February 10
LARGO — Susan Trevena thought she recognized the suits two days ago. FBI, she thought.
They were hanging around in the lobby of the First Union building, 801 West Bay Drive. Trevena, who works in her husband's law office in that building, wondered what they were up to.
She found out Friday. A swarm of suited FBI agents raided a business in her building. When she left for the day, six or seven agents got on the elevator with her. They were taking boxes and crates with them, she said.
Trevena, her husband, John, and the postal carrier who brings mail to the building identified the raided business as Bay Area Business Council, which is in Suite 201. Officials from the company could not be reached for comment Friday.
The Trevenas said they believe Bay Area Business Council was involved in telemarketing or possibly an Internet-related business.
Federal officials confirmed that they served two search warrants in Largo on Friday but would not say where.
Largo police, who stood by while the warrants were served, said both warrants were served at businesses, one at the First Union building and the other on Tall Pines Drive.
FBI spokeswoman Pam Salerno said the Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service, also was involved in the search warrants. Largo police and Pinellas County sheriff's deputies stood by, she said.
Salerno said the search warrants "are in connection with an ongoing investigation." Information from any items taken during the searches will be discussed with the U.S. Attorney's Office, she said.
She said the search warrants and affidavits were ordered sealed by the court, so she could say no more. A message left on the voice mail of the Clearwater-based agent in charge of the investigation was not returned Friday.
Steve Cole, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tampa, confirmed the searches but could say no more. "We're not really at liberty to say anything at this point, " he said.
Linda Walker, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, confirmed that her agency was assisting the FBI. "We are assisting on this case. The FBI is the lead agency, " she said.
Walker said a member of the agency's fraud team was working on the case. She said the agency investigates any crime committed through the mail, whether it be drugs or bombs in the mail, or frauds or schemes involving checks, sweepstakes or charities.
"We work a lot of different cases, " she said. "Anything that's through the mail, that gives us jurisdiction to work it. Any criminal offense that's committed through the mail we have jurisdiction to get involved in."
The Trevenas said a number of law enforcement sedans, with agents inside, arrived at the building around noon Friday. They said agents stayed all afternoon.
Susan Trevena said she thought the business had about 40 employees.
John Trevena said agents were seizing records and going through computers at the business.
George Reiss, who delivers mail to the business, said he was making his rounds Friday when he came to Bay Area Business Council and was confronted by an FBI agent who took the mail. Reiss said he had to call his office to report that the mail had been intercepted.
Reiss said a lot of certified and registered mail — mostly packages — are returned to the business every day. He said on Mondays there are sometimes up to 50 packages returned; there were about 20 on Friday, he said.
"It's really been consuming me, " he said of the heavy load. "All these are coming back. It would come in mountains.
"When I went in there today, all hell broke loose, " he added. "The Largo police were in there, the FBI was in there. And the FBI agent said, "I want to look at your mail' and signed off on it."
SECOND BUST: (Partial Article)
Federal agents shut down telemarketer
Records are seized and assets frozen at Bay Area Business Council after hundreds of consumer complaints nationwide.
By CHRIS TISCH, Times Staff Writer
St. Petersburg Times
published August 17
LARGO — Federal authorities have shut down a Largo telemarketing business that has been accused of using deceptive tactics to sell charge cards to people with poor credit histories.
Armed with a court order, officials with the Federal Trade Commission, the FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service entered the office of Bay Area Business Council on Thursday morning and ordered employees out. Federal authorities then took control of the company's office, which is in the First Union building at 801 West Bay Blvd. Officials changed the locks on the door, secured information on the company's computers and began to freeze the company's assets, said Stephen T. Bobo, a Chicago attorney who is the court-appointed receiver of the company.
The Bay Area Business Council has been the subject of many consumer complaints. The Better Business Bureau of West Florida lists the company as having an unsatisfactory record because "they have a pattern of complaints concerning misrepresentation in their selling practices, billing disputes and requests for refunds."
In North Carolina, a Superior Court judge ordered the company to stop doing business in that state after more than two dozen people complained that company representatives lied or tricked them before taking their money. "Bay Area Business Council used a slick telemarketing pitch to take consumers' money, " North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said. "They promised consumers a real credit card, but what consumers got was a useless piece of plastic." In February FBI agents and postal inspectors executed a search warrant at the business and took crates of documents. No criminal charges have been filed against the company, but consumer advocates say the company is one of the most notorious telemarketers in the country.
"We've gotten hundreds of complaints, " said Ed Magedson, editor of font size= 2usacomplaints.com, which allows consumers to post complaints on its Web site. "I must have thousands of e-mail complaints on them. They are in the top of the credit card scams."
The company is owned by Peter J. Porcelli, 50, who gained some attention in the late 1990s when he owned a fast-pitch softball team, the Tampa Bay Smokers, which won several national championships. "I think MY FRIENDS AT THE FTC HAVE SOME BAD INFORMATION, and all of that will be resolved, " Porcelli said Friday, calling from a softball championship in Ontario.
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Comment:
(Ontario? Was he picking money up, or dropping it off???)
his friends? His friends at ftc??? Which ones might they be? The ones that get a piece of the pie?
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A hearing on the court order is scheduled for Wednesday in Chicago. "We fully intend to deal with that next Wednesday at the hearing, and I think everything will be resolved, " Porcelli said.
FTC officials said they could not comment on the court order that shut down Bay Area Business Council. The order was sealed by the court so authorities have time to seize and freeze the company's assets and operations, officials said. A related company in Sunrise also was shut down this week. Officials said other companies called customers for Bay Area Business Council.
North Carolina customers also were promised a Florida vacation, which none of them received, said Noelle Taylor, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office. Rank said he told the company not to call him again, to put him on their do-not-call list. They called three more times, he said. "Some consumers also said they had their accounts debited without authorizing it, " Taylor said.
Donna
N Richland Hills, Texas
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