Stanton-Based Magazine Accused in Billing Scam : Postal law: Inspectors say help-wanted ads were reprinted without permission, then collected on.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service has accused a Stanton magazine of reprinting help-wanted ads from newspapers across the country without permission, then duping employers into paying for ads they never ordered.

The invoices from Professional Opportunity Magazine Inc. of Stanton look like bills until you read the small print, which identifies the document as a solicitation, said Postal Inspector Donald Obritsch. He contends the material is misleading enough to violate postal false representation laws, which is a civil offense.

Judge Gary L. Taylor in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles ordered the magazine’s incoming mail seized pending a hearing.

“One of our jobs is to protect businesses from unscrupulous promoters,” Obritsch said.

Obritsch said the magazine receives about 20 letters a day that he believes are payments of $150 or more, based on interviews with people who complained.

The magazine company did not answer telephone calls Thursday. The monthly tabloid-size magazine reprints ads for professional job candidates from newspapers such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, Obritsch said. The shopper-like magazine is distributed free and claims a circulation of 25,000 at newsstands throughout Southern California.

The envelope that carries the invoice is usually addressed to the attention of the company’s accounts payable department, Obritsch said. He said the magazine provides the advertiser with no information regarding Professional Opportunity Magazine, and no circumstances under which the classified ad was printed, just the payment form and a torn-out copy of the magazine page that contains the ad.

Walter McKee, manager of information systems for The Travel Difference in Glendale, said he almost paid one of the magazine’s solicitations, which asked for $376.56 for a help-wanted ad for a computer operator. McKee assumed at first that somebody in personnel had gotten a good deal on the ad and had placed it in two places, but then he did some checking.

“It looks like a typical newspaper classified,” he said. “But I knew we hadn’t placed the ad, we’re not a huge department. If it had been our ad department--they place hundreds of ads--this could shoot right through.”

Complaints started coming in to Obritsch’s department in 1988 by way of Better Business Bureau offices throughout the country. Obritsch said the department has tried to work with the magazine owners rather than go to court. He has asked the magazine to change the look of its invoice so it would look less like a bill and to contact employers before reprinting the ads. But the requests have gone unheeded, he said.

Obritsch said no court date has been set for the hearing. He has asked the court to order all of Professional Opportunity Magazine’s mail stamped “Return to Sender.”