Power Direct, the telemarketing company behind Data Knight 365, the shadowy firm that announced last week it would spend more than $20 million to build a “world class data center” in Floyd’s industrial park, is an operation of aliases, multiple listings of “dbas” (doing business as) and run-ins with consumers and the law.
It’s a privately-held company sometimes known as Power Direct, but also known as D.R.D. Inc., R D D Inc. and several other names we have discovered in a search of business databases, public records and corporation filings.
D.R.D. stems from the initials of Daniel R. Delfino, the owner of record of the many different identities of Power Direct. In his biography on the Power Direct web site, Delfino sounds like a man of many great accomplishments:
Dan Delfino brings over 20 years experience in the call center and data/marketing arenas. Multiple Fortune 1000 companies can credit their wealth and prestige to his unique revenue generating strategies. He sampled the telemarketing industry at Dun & Bradstreet where he marketed its list management services and quickly acquired more responsibilities. His progressive success and leadership in developing marketing strategies led him to consulting in the publishing and telecommunications fields. And in 1994 his own company, Power Direct was born. Dan’s ambition and entrepreneurial spirit has never wavered as Power Direct holds its own as a call center powerhouse. He upholds his initial vision of providing clients with turnkey marketing solutions, inbound/outbound telemarketing and database mining solutions. Dan earned his Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration at Baldwin Wallace College. The school also honored him as a 1998 Football Hall of Fame inductee, remembering his contribution to its 1978 Division III National Championship.
Baldwin Wallace College is a private, Methodist-oriented liberal arts school in Berea, Ohio, about 20 minutes outside of Cleveland. Delfino graduated from the school in 1981 and was inducted into the school’s “Hall of Fame” in 1998. It is an athletic hall of fame specific to the school and includes alumni who contribued “in other ways” to the school along with past school officials. It is not part of the College Football Hall of Fame located in South Bend, Indiana.
Delfino and DRD Inc. were also “honored” on December 14, 2006, by the Federal Trade Commission with fines and injunctions because Delfino and his company violated the “Do Not Call” rules of the commission. The FTC press release:
The Federal Trade Commission today announced it has entered into court settlements with the final defendants charged with violating the Do Not Call (DNC) provisions of the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) by calling consumers whose numbers were on the DNC Registry in an attempt to sell them DIRECTV satellite television subscriptions. The orders require the defendants to pay a total of $100,000 in penalties and bar them from future TSR violations.
In December 2005, the Commission charged DIRECTV and other defendants that telemarketed on DIRECTV’s behalf – including those settling today – with violating the DNC Rule and the TSR by calling consumers, despite the fact that their numbers were on the National DNC Registry. In settling the charges, DIRECTV paid $5.3 million, representing the largest-ever DNC penalty obtained by the Commission.
The final court orders announced today settle the Commission’s charges against the following defendants: D.R.D., Inc., also d/b/a Power Direct; Daniel R. Delfino, individually and as an officer of D.R.D.; Global Satellite, LLC., also d/b/a Mavcomm; William King, individually and as an officer of Global Satellite; and Michael Gleason, individually and as an officer of Global Satellite.
The FTC placed Delfino, D.R.D. and Power Direct under a special monitoring program to keep an eye on future telemarketing abuses, noting:
The stipulated final judgments and orders against the D.R.D. and Global Satellite defendants contain both monetary penalties and conduct provisions…Finally, both orders bar the defendants from violating the TSR in the future and contains monitoring and record keeping provisions to ensure their compliance.
Detailed information on a privately-held company is not always easy to get because public disclosure filings are not required. Manta, which tracks small businesses says this about Power Direct:
Power Direct is a private company categorized under Nonclassified Establishments and located in Cleveland, OH. Our records show it was established in 1994* and incorporated in Ohio*. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of unknown and employs a staff of approximately 1 to 4.
Dun & Bradstreet, however, lists Power Direct’s “estimated” annual revenue at $17 million and says the company has 577 employees.
While Delfino’s background does involve the collection of data and information, it does not match Data Knight 365’s claim that:
For the past 15 years, DK3 senior management staff has operated and managed Data Center storage and management facilities, collocation facilities, and private fiber networks providing connectivity services that ensure clients are able to run their businesses with maximum efficientcy and reliabiliy.
Fifteen years is the length of time Delfino’s operations have been in business but DK3’s connection to the data center business appears to be Don Sabin, a former salesman for Fiber Media in Hollywood, Florida. Fiber Media was founded in 2000.
Complaints about D.R.D., R.D.D. and Power Direct continued to flow into the Better Business Bureau and web sites that monitor telemarketing abuses long after the FTC fined the company and ordered it to stop violating telemarketing laws. The web site 800 Notes cataloged complaints about telemarketing abuses from phone number (216) 453-1979 through June of last year. The number backtraces to Delfino’s companies. Delfino’s three call centers in Cleveland use several different numbers and recently changed some because of consumer complaints.
Power Direct’s web site uses photos not of the company and its personnel but “stock” photos from an agency that sells the images for generic use. The “news” section of Power Direct’s web site lists seven stories about the company from August 2005 to May 2008 but does not link to a single outside source for the “news.” Two of the stories announce the company was on Crain’s Ohio Business list of “Leading Edge” for two years but Crain’s dropped the company from the list this year with no explanation. Three stories tout the company’s listing on the “Weatherhead” list of fastest growing companies in Northeast Ohio.
We checked the Weatherhead list. Power Direct is 92nd. In Northeast Ohio, just about every company that didn’t lose money the previous five years makes the list. Companies can apply to make the list. They are not nominated. The key is to be in the top 25.
Click here to read the PDF file of the FTC order against Delfino and D.R.D. Inc.