Fake fund-raisers have public wary

By Scott Ishikawa
Advertiser Central O'ahu Writer

Selling fund-raiser tickets for chili, Huli-Huli chicken, sweet bread and Portuguese sausage has become as much a local tradition as the food itself.

Zippy's took measures to help prevent counterfeiting of benefit chili tickets, such as changing the ticket color each month. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

The latest affects Mililani High School, which has been victimized before.

"About once a month, residents call about a scam going on," said Mililani principal Robert Ginlack. "Because Mililani is a large, middle-class community, it seems to get more than its fair share of con artists doing these things."

Ginlack said someone last month sold magazine subscriptions to unsuspecting Mililani residents, claiming that proceeds would benefit the high school. Crooks recently also tried to sell fraudulent pizza tickets using the premise of fund-raising for the Mililani High marching band.

Similar cases occurred in Mililani a year ago when a male teenager went door-to-door selling fake pizza coupons and gift certificates to local shopping centers.

Wendell Say, 'Aiea High School football coach, said the latest rash of fund-raiser scams comes during an important fund-raising period for many high school athletic teams during their offseason.

Say said he believes a 1999 fund-raising scam involving fake Portuguese sausage tickets sold in 'Aiea cut into sales of his football team's real fund-raiser that year.

"People were afraid to buy afterward because they weren't sure what was real and what was not," said Say, who said he hopes the recent scams don't hurt the team's upcoming Huli-Huli chicken sale. "The money for our fund-raiser goes to help pay for equipment like the kids' practice jerseys."

Everyone loses

There is no official record of how many legitimate fund-raisers are held each year, but it's safe to say that there are hundreds of them totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.

While the nominal amounts lost by individuals in fund-raising schemes may not be enough to cause customers to file a police report, the scams hurt organizations trying to raise money and damage the reputation of fund-raisers in general, hurting all such groups, particularly in a tight economy when raising money is even more difficult than usual.

A handful of fraudulent fund-raisers have occurred in the past three years. Among them:

• In March 2000, police investigated the production and sale of at least $10,000 worth of counterfeit carnival scrip redeemed at the annual Waimanalo Community Carnival. A similar situation occurred a month later at a St. John Vianney Parish School fair in Kailua.

• In November 1999, police arrested and later charged Shane Santos in the theft of $20,000 in a bogus fund-raiser he allegedly ran for a Manoa Pop Warner football team trip to Las Vegas. Santos pleaded no contest to six counts of second-degree theft and attempted theft.

• In July 1999, three Central/Leeward O'ahu high schools reported that residents were sold fake tickets for Huli-Huli chicken and Portuguese sausage sales.

"We are generally trusting people, and when you buy a fund-raiser ticket, you're basically putting faith into the system," said Sgt. Fay Tamura of the Honolulu Police Department in Wahiawa. "Nearly all the fund-raisers are legit, but occasionally you have a bad apple."

Ginlack said he requires all Mililani High-sponsored fund-raisers to be approved by him to help separate legitimate ones from the scams. Mililani High also announces its fund-raisers in its school newsletter sent home to parents. Mililani High's junior class is selling $6 coupons to Tanioka's store in Waipahu, and the sophomore class is selling pineapple pound cakes, Ginlack said.

Staying ahead of crooks

Companies that distribute fund-raiser food products have also recently changed their ticket design to discourage counterfeiting. Linda Kato, assistant controller for Zippy's restaurants, said the company in 1999 altered the design of its popular chili fund-raiser tickets because officials said they felt they could be vulnerable to con artists.

Using a four-color printing process, the tickets show a color photo of a bowl of chili in the corner and are printed on a heavier card stock. A different color bar each month on the side of the ticket indicates the coupon's expiration date.

"We print and distribute the tickets to make it consistent, so the employees know what is a valid ticket when it's turned in," Kato said.

Zippy's officials also noticed something else on previously redeemed tickets.

"We previously had the price of the chili ticket on the bottom, but sometimes that portion was cut off," Kato said. "If the ticket was stolen, we realized someone may have been selling the tickets at a higher price than (the) one issued."

The price on the Zippy's chili ticket is now printed larger and placed where it would be more noticeable if it was tampered with.

"These crooks, they just keep you on your toes, and you have to keep up with them."

Robert Maru, president of Bob's Hawaiian Style Chicken, said he made changes to his tickets two years ago after illegally duplicated tickets popped up during a barbecue chicken pickup at a church fund-raiser.

"It wasn't a large number (of fake tickets), and it only made a small dent into the church's fund-raiser profits," said Maru, who does two to three barbecue chicken cookouts each weekend. "But I told the printer that we had to make some changes."

Maru's printed tickets now have a shaded picture of the company's chicken logo that is difficult to duplicate with a copy machine.

"I never have a client print their own tickets; that's a big no-no," Maru said.

Reach Scott Ishikawa at sishikawa@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2429.

Correction: Mililani High School's junior class is selling $6 coupons to Tanioka's store in Waipahu as a fund-raiser. A previous version of this story gave an incorrect price.