UPDATED 2:39 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) Narc That Car is not affiliated with the AMBER Alert Secondary Distribution Program, an official said yesterday.
Robert Hoever’s comments followed on the heels of a denial by the Justice Department that Narc That Car was affiliated with the AMBER Alert program — despite repeated claims by Narc That Car promoters that participation in Narc That Car benefited AMBER Alert.
Hoever, associate director of special projects in the Missing Children’s Division of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), manages the Amber Alert Secondary Distribution Program for NCMEC and the Justice Department, and 120 Amber Alert coordinators throughout the United States.
“Narc that Car is not a part of the AMBER Alert Secondary Distribution Program,” Hoever said.
Given the inarguably high stakes when a child goes missing, Hoever said it was common for people and organizations to try to get involved and help — “[s]ome by pulling AMBER Alerts off the internet and posting them in various places.”
But he cautioned that brand dilution and public desensitization can occur when AMBER Alert’s famous name is commercialized.
“As you might imagine there can be accuracy issues as well as timeliness concerns,” Hoever said. “The integrity of the AMBER Alert program needs to be protected so that we do not over saturate the public, but rather send messages to targeted areas defined by the investigating agency. We do not want to desensitize the public by sending alerts that are commercialized, that do not apply to the recipients, are not completely accurate, or are not timely.”
Promoters routinely reference AMBER Alert in sales pitches for the Narc That Car multilevel-marketing program, which charges participants a $100 fee up front and a website fee of $24.95 a month to become “independent consultants.”
Narc That Car’s consultants are instructed to write down the license-plate numbers of 10 automobiles and enter the information into a database Narc That Car maintains. Participants get paid for entering information in the database, and are paid additional commissions if they recruit others into the program and minimum thresholds are met.
Clients such as major automobile manufacturers, banks, automobile-repossession companies and others are interested in purchasing information from the database for $99, according to Narc That Car.
Promoters routinely drop the names of AMBER Alert and make references to “law enforcement” in ads for the Narc That Car program, but the company does not publish a list of clients.
Google search results include references such as this: (Italics/bold added.)
“This program is supported by all the major vehicle manufactures, FBI, law enforcement and financial institutions to help locate and in some cases reclaim vehicles. Just having an address does not work, people ‘hide’ their vehicles and we provide a pattern of these vehicles movements. We recently allowed the Amber Alert program access to help in their cause when there is a need to track down a vehicle quickly that might be in the National data base.”
(URL for above still current as of Feb. 4, 2010.)
Here is another claim (italics/bold added):
“This is an excellent business opportunity, very very simple, and very lucrative. It is a new business that gathers license plate numbers for various companies.
Such as:
*Major Auto Manufactures
*Private Lien Holders
* Banks
*In House Auto Dealers
*Commercial Vehicle Companies
*Missing Persons
*Law Enforcement & Government Agencies
*Amber Alert
(URL for above still current as of Feb. 4, 2010)
Meanwhile, a Google search result includes this claim (italics/bold added):
“I got my first check from Narc That Car. This is fun and easy, and I’m helping Amber Alerts!â€
UPDATE 2:39 P.M. The screen shot below is a miniaturized version of a logo that appeared today on a site called “FindThatCar.org.” The logo included an appeal to “Help us,” as though it were collecting money for a charity.
