JOPLIN, Mo. — Joplin police are scrutinizing a Florida-based charitable organization dubbed Rescue Joplin believed to be responsible for unsolicited calls placed to residents in recent days offering tornado victims help in dealing with their insurance companies.

City Hall and the Joplin Police Department were inundated with inquiries about “robo” calls received over the weekend and continuing on Monday.

“We’ve received some complaints and one of our detectives is looking into it,” police Sgt. Matt Stewart said.

The Missouri Attorney General’s Office also acknowledged having received a number of inquiries about the calls. But spokeswoman Nanci Gonder said she could not comment on whether the office is investigating the matter.

The calls from Rescue Joplin warn storm victims against settling with their insurance companies before first hearing what a Florida business, First Response Team, can do for them. The calls have been inviting people to an informational workshop set for 7 p.m. today at the Joplin Family Worship Center, 5290 E. Seventh St.

Besides the police, the Southwest Missouri Better Business Bureau in Springfield and its counterpart in central Florida raised flags of caution Monday with respect to Rescue Joplin and First Response Team.

Judy Pepper, president of the Better Business Bureau of Central Florida, pointed out that the websites for Rescue Joplin and First Response Team were set up about the same time in early June. She said a man who appears in the videos on First Response Team’s site has been identified as Roderic “Rick” Boling, who has been involved in various telemarketing operations in Florida.

COURT RECORDS

Court records show he has a criminal record in Florida and was charged in 2006 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in connection with a fraudulent stock tip scheme.

A news release of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in July 2007 stated that Boling and two co-defendants pleaded guilty to “their roles in hundreds of thousands of fraudulent ‘voicemail’ stock tip messages. The messages, which were left on telephone voicemail recording machines throughout the country, were designed to deceive a recipient into believing he had inadvertently received a ‘hot’ stock tip meant for a close friend of the caller.”

The federal court’s electronic records show the other two co-defendants were sentenced late last year and early this year. The sentencing of Boling appears in court records to remain pending.

Pastor Dan Wermuth of the Joplin Family Worship Center said it is the voice of a man he knows as Rick Boling that is on the “robo” calls people received over the weekend. Wermuth indicated that he received one of the calls himself and heard Boling speak last Thursday at a similar workshop at his church.

Wermuth said his church became associated with Rescue Joplin and First Response Team through its efforts to help tornado victims in the community. He said the director of Rescue Joplin, Lee Terry, is a minister friend of his who lives in Orlando, Fla. Wermuth said he met Terry a few years ago at a funeral in Kentucky for a mutual pastor friend.

Wermuth said he was not aware of any yellow flags with respect to either Rescue Joplin or the business. He said his church just hopes to assist storm victims in finding options for getting their lives back together and views the two Florida groups as helpers.

He said about 50 people were at Thursday’s meeting. Many of the people who attended expressed concerns with the responses they were getting from their insurance companies. Boling answered their questions for an hour or longer, he said.

Wermuth characterized the meeting as “informational” and not sales-oriented, although people were offered copies of the company’s contracts to take home with them to study.

“We’re just trying to help,” Lee Terry told the Globe when reached at a telephone number Wermuth provided.

CONNECTION

The website of Rescue Joplin solicits donations for Joplin tornado victims and provides a link to the website for First Response Team. Terry said Boling is the director of marketing for the Florida business and said he has known him since 2007 when he and a construction partner worked with First Response Team rebuilding homes in The Villages, Fla., following an EF-3 tornado.

Terry said he knew nothing about any criminal conviction of Boling the same year.

“If he got convicted, it’s kind of hard for him to be running around about the same time,” Terry said.

He said his charity hopes to help people meet their insurance deductibles and to raise enough money to assist victims with food and other basic needs. He said Rescue Joplin had not received any donations so far and was still working to establish a local bank account for those funds.

QUESTIONS

Callers to the Globe have questioned how the two Florida groups obtained their cellphone numbers, including some who are on Missouri’s no-call list for solicitors.

Terry said the calls were being made by a call center in Florida that has volunteered to help tornado victims here. He said it is his understanding that charities seeking to help victims in a national disaster area are exempted from the no-call list ban. But he had no explanation how the company obtained those numbers.

“I’m not the call center,” he said. “I don’t know how they go about getting their telephone numbers.”

He said he did not know where the center is located or what its telephone number is.

Pepper told the Globe that First Response Team is registered as a fictitious name in Florida for the business Direct Installation Services.

The Globe was unable to reach Boling for comment at a local telephone number Wermuth provided. Instead, a man who identified himself as Mark Harmon, director of operations for Direct Installation Services, spoke to the newspaper.

Harmon said Direct Installation Services, whose president is Gary Michael Martin, is working with another Florida company, SDI Solar, in the Joplin area. He said SDI Solar actually holds the commercial license with the city of Joplin to be doing business here.

According to Harmon, Boling was hired to act as spokesman for the companies because he is “a very dynamic speaker.”

“He’s just very good at doing that and has a reputation for being very good at it,” Harmon said.

Harmon demonstrated an awareness of Boling’s conviction in 2007 and said Direct Installation Services learned of it by vetting Boling with “due diligence” prior to hiring him. He said many people “who have some sort of a past” have gone on to hold jobs with respectable companies.