Telemarketing Weasels Update

Posted on May 23, 2003 by Gene

Back at the beginning of the month I posted an annoyance about telemarketers who constantly call with pre-recorded messages, breaking the law. Mark Eckenwiler has been having the same troubles, but he’s armed with the regulations and a tendency to take the offenders to court. He’s discovered more links between the various callers, phone numbers, and front companies:

I’ve been doing some more digging — all public-source, on my personal time, mind you — and the interconnections are just mind-boggling. (Just a couple of examples: if you call the second Grodecki family phone # in Germantown listed in my earlier post, you get a recording for — wait for it — Jeeves. And Iwona Grodecki herself is a phone rep for Jeeves, as I confirmed with a call.)

Also, “Jeeves Handyman Service” was simply a dba for a now-defunct Md corporation (Securicare, LLC, I think). Its predecessor (Securicare [no comma] LLC) lapsed about a year earlier. (I may have the names backwards on that.) And the current corp — JHS Inc. — is not in good standing, on account of not having filed the required tax returns.

The MHIC contractor license number on the Jeeves website is no longer valid.

And company founder Sam R. Alameddine has numerous aliases. For example, his house in DC at — remember this? — 3400 Garrison St NW — is owned by “Sam R. Dean”.

No wonder there are complaints like the second one listed at the Fairfax County consumer complaint website.
This is getting interesting. Front companies, aliases… I wonder where this trail leads? It’s a real-life mystery, and one that I’m astonished has not been addressed by some crack investigative reporter somewhere.
I think I might wander down the street to the alleged office of these companies and see what’s what – once I hire a bodyguard.

Some other comments from various folks:
- Joe Shelby