Telemarketers Shut Down in Garden Grove

GARDEN GROVE â€”  Police here Tuesday shut down a telemarketing boiler room that sold a year’s worth of vitamins with the promise that customers would win a car, television or valuable jewelry.

But consumers who paid several hundred dollars for the vitamins received a fake topaz pendant instead of a valuable prize, Garden Grove Police Lt. Chuck Gibbs said.

“As far as we know, nobody got a car or a TV,� he said.

Police briefly detained about 30 salesmen working on a bank of telephones inside four suites at 12881 Knott Ave. Four of the workers were arrested on outstanding warrants unrelated to the boiler-room activity.

The operation worked under several business names--Health Care Products, K&M; and United Health Care--and has offices in other cities, Gibbs said. He said the companies are suspected of deceptive business practices, unlawful advertising and operating without a telemarketing license from the state.

The owners of the businesses were not apprehended, but warrants will be issued for their arrest, Gibbs said. He would not identify the owners, pending their arrest. In the raid, police seized two vanloads of records.

“Our indications are that just a few people own the business, and we do have indications that it is a bigger operation than just this one office,� Gibbs said.

His department received calls from people around the country who had either ordered the plain-wrapper vitamins or who were suspicious after talking to a salesperson by phone, Gibbs said.

Telemarketers offered a chance at a prize with the vitamins, including a 1990 Dodge Dakota and a 1990 Chevrolet Astro Van. Gibbs said that the topaz pendant was one of the prizes and that salespeople represented it over the phone as valuable, but it was nearly worthless.

The boiler room, which has been operating in Garden Grove for more than a year, was manned in two shifts of telemarketers, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Gibbs said.