(JTA) — Jewish business owners from Switzerland and France filed police complaints against a Swiss firm they accuse of fraudulently promising access to leading Jewish figures.
The business owners filed the complaints this month against a Lausanne-based entity called the Federation of International Jewish Communities, known also by its French-language acronym FICJ, the Swiss Les Temps daily reported on Thursday.
The company charged the complainants $4,685 for an advertisement that it promised would be sent to 700,000 relevant contacts from a database of seven million, according to Les Temps.
In its promotional brochure, the FICJ assures prospective clients that recipients include leaders of industry, professionals, Jewish schools and parents of students in Jewish institutions as well as actors and show business personalities, the daily reported.
The complainants, who were not named, told Les Temps that they became suspicious when they observed no change in sales or traffic to their websites after paying FICJ.
A representative of FICJ told JTA that the firm was not immediately available for comment on the allegations.
On its website, the FICJ describes itself as “an independent and apolitical organization, whose role is to interact with world Jewish communities using an efficient and effective network of communications, in order to maintain close ties between communities; inform them and enrich them through mutual knowledge of each community’s potential.”
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