Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Toys “R” Us sells toy guns, police car models, and fake badges, but the chain’s traffic in make-believe apparently extends to real-life law as well. More than a year after retrieving her son from the back office of a San Francisco Toys “R” Us store—after a security guard caught him carrying around a Yak Bak toy in his pocket—Margaret Chant received a letter containing a fake civil complaint. “You may stop this suit from being filed by making payment according to the terms of the demand letter enclosed,” it warned. The demand letter asked for $365 in civil damages. Unable to come up with the money, Chant contacted Berkeley, Calif., attorney Larry Hildes.

“The first word out of my mouth was ‘scam,'” Hildes says. He says the letter, sent by Florida attorney James R. Palmer, who represented Loss Prevention Specialists (LPS), a Florida collections firm contracted by Toys “R” Us, contained several improprieties. The most obvious: California law allows retailers to collect damages only if a person leaves the premises with merchandise.

So why did Chant receive a letter? “We’re under contract to send a letter to everyone we get a report on,” says LPS president Read Hayes. Rebecca Caruso, a Toys “R” Us spokeswoman, claims that the chain has a right to seek such damages.

Hildes has filed a lawsuit against LPS, Palmer, and Toys “R” Us. “[LPS] has no ability to bring lawsuits except in Florida,” says Hildes. “Fifty percent of the people who get these letters pay, so [LPS is] just playing the percentages.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate