An explosive new HBO original documentary will expose the dark side of charity telemarketers thanks to two undercover operatives who brought down the organization they worked for from the inside out.
Telemarketers recount the two-decade journey of high school dropout Sam Lipman-Stern and salesperson Pat Pespas as they discover that their dodgy New Jersey call center sends only a small percentage of the money they persuade people to donate to charities and the pocket the rest for themselves.
From Safdie brothers Josh and Benny, who directed the 2019 film Uncut Gems, and actor Danny McBride, the three-part docuseries follows the co-workers as they turn into whistleblowers as they uncover the truth of the multi-billion dollar scam.
“We’re going to the Civic Development Group,” Pat explains in the trailer, which came out on July 26.
Whistleblowers: Colleagues Sam Lipman-Stern (l) and Pat Pespas teamed up to bring down the billion dollar scam for 20 years
“And what we do is we call people up and chisel them out of money.”
Sam was just 14 when he joined the cruddy company and started calling on behalf of charities.
Surrounded by drink, drugs and debauchery, he had no idea that his employer was stealing money from donors.
“I didn’t think I was doing anything bad at all,” he admits.
He would soon discover that the telemarketing business model was scamming the “most vulnerable people in this country” and that the company he worked for was “a big scam.”
As one US official puts it, “Regulating telemarketing is like regulating Somali pirates, it just can’t be done.”
“We need to show the world what this place really does,” continues Sam. “The media and the government have not been able to stop them, so now it’s up to us.”
“Pat and I were sworn to expose the industry,” he declares. “It seemed to evolve into something bigger and weirder than ever.”
Younger: Sam was only 14 when he started calling on behalf of charities to get donations
Chaos: The office dynamic was described by a colleague as a ‘big ass cook out’
Shocking office environment: employees were surrounded by ‘booze, drugs and debauchery’
Teamwork: Pat and Sam have vowed to expose the industry together and bring it down from the inside
The film, which launches Aug. 13, uses raw eyewitness footage shot by Sam, with HBO teasing “an anarchist boiler room full of booze, drugs, and debauchery to the halls of the United States Senate.”
The Federal Trade Commission has determined that telemarketing fraud is one of the most convincing forms of deception.
In the case of charity fraud, telemarketers will claim to represent charities and will ask the target for a donation.
Fake charities try to capitalize on people’s generosity and compassion for others in need and will take money by posing as a real charity.
To do this, they can, for example, use natural disasters to make their fake requests for donations sound more credible.
Premiere: Director Benny Safdie poses with Pat at the New York premiere of the HBO docuseries
Brave: Sam was also present at the Hudson Yards premiere of Telemarketers last week
The Telemarketers trailer has already garnered a lot of attention, with many people sharing their experiences and expressing their excitement for tuning in to see the action unfold.
“I worked in a place like this when I was 16-17 and people were always whispering it was a total scam,” one fan wrote on YouTube.
“Years later I heard through the grapevine that the entire parent company had closed down and charges had been filed and people were in jail for fraud. I can’t wait to see this!’
Caught: Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for running a years-long telemarketing scheme
Another said, “I worked in a call center back in 2003 where I alternated between selling car loans at extortionate prices and doing collections on those loans, so this should be a nice nostalgia hit.”
A third added: ‘I worked for one of these companies in high school. The week before I started, there was a raid by the FBI. No charges were filed. I didn’t stay there long, but the money was very good. There were boys who earned a good income there by collecting ‘donations’ for good causes.’
Last month, it was revealed that scammers are targeting parents by using AI to clone their children’s voices and then making phone calls with fake emergencies and ransom demands.
So-called scams, where a fraudster impersonates someone to steal money, are the most common scam in the US, losing $2.6 billion to Americans in 2022 alone, the Federal Trade Commission reported.
In January, Jen Shah, star of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for running a years-long telemarketing scheme, which prosecutors say targeted the elderly and the vulnerable, robbed them of their savings and power maximized. credit cards.
In court, prosecutors were told she “laughed” at some of the victims who cried and begged for debt forgiveness.
Telemarketers premieres August 13 on HBO