Monday, November 26, 2007

More on International Profit Associates

My good friend Dan Curry at Reverse Spin has been keeping an eye on the International Profit Associates scandal for months. The Miami Herald has a story on the controversial Illinois firm, one that has been very generous to the campaign funds of many Democratic candidates--including Illinois' attorney general, Lisa Madigan, as well as Hillary Rodham Clinton.

From the Herald:

Florida's attorney general has registered 28 complaints against IPA and passed those concerns along to its Illinois counterpart, which is investigating the company. While IPA has been sued by individual clients in the past, this is the first time that former customers have banded together in court.

From Reverse Spin:

That was Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum's first mistake—if he wants anything done about IPA. Madigan, a Democrat, has been investigating IPA, a political donor, for more than four years without producing any results. And the Democratic Attorneys General Association, the political action committee of Democratic AGs, took one of its largest campaign donations, $50,000, from IPA last year in the midst of Madigan’s "probe."

Getting anyone in Illinois interested in IPA fraud complaints will be difficult. The New York Times and now the Miami Herald have delved deeply into the IPA matter but not the Chicago media. That is puzzling to say the least considering that IPA is headquartered in suburban Buffalo Grove and it has showered Illinois politicians with hundreds of thousands in campaign donations. IPA also has given Hillary Clinton more than $150,000. For all (of Curry's) posts on IPA, go here.

There are active communities of victims who vent their frustrations with IPA here, here and now at the bottom of the Miami Herald story.

A friend recently (not me, by the way) asked me if the Illinois media freeze on IPA was related to the IPA radio and TV ads that seem to air constantly on Chicago stations. Seems like a fair question.

Seems like a fair question to bring up in the next Democratic debate.

Related posts:

Where is the outrage? Dem atty gen'l group takes $50K from International Profit Associates
Hillary's vacuous vetting exposes International Profit Associates hypocrisy

Hillary returns Hsu money, but what about International Profit Associates cash?

Obama ditching more Rezko linked cash, but what about Hillary?

Hillary got $4,000 donation from high school student

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3 comments:

Kate said...

Between April and August of 2008 IPA systematically and we believe deliberately bankrupted our company. All of the "systems" that they were contractually committed to provided to us turned out to be nothing more than creating new positions within our company and then filling them with people that were solicited off of the internet by IPA. IPA was instrumental in obtaining a line of credit for our company that we had to personally guarantee. Now our company is gone, we have no corporate funds to pay these lines with and are forced to try and pay them personally. Yes, we have asked IPA to refund our $291,000 paid to them for bankrupting our company. They are "investigating" our complaint. As a sidenote we ran a successful company for 20 years before the intervention of IPA.

Unknown said...

Last year the company that I worked for hired IPA to "consult". Basically the consultant just went to the owner with the suggestions that the employees had made to him, claiming them as his own. The employees gained a wage cut and higher insurance costs with no hope in sight for turning the company around. Needless to say, I no longer work for this company.

Anonymous said...

Run from these guys. They change their name as often as I change my socks. The go by IPA IBA IPT ABS IPA SMS GPS and probably a dozen more I don't know about. Their main concern is cleaning out your bank account. I wonder how many other companies like Kate have gone bankrupt after these crooks clean them out.