(Fort Wayne, IN) Indiana's Newscenter - The phone rings and you hear "I'm calling with the Indiana Troopers Association". You've likely heard a similar greeting when you pick up the phone, but how do you know you're not being scammed. This particular caller is legitimate and is raising money for the Indiana Troopers Association which operates out of Angola.

Karen Shelton/ITA Ex. Director- "we have two main goal, supporting those who serve, and lending a helping hand to those in need.

Along With the ITA, The Association or Indiana State Troopers and Indiana State Police alliance are the only two other organizations recognized as legitimate State Police associations. Karen Shelton heads up the Angola office which raises money for a number of community programs, but their main purpose is to provide a $10-thousand dollar line of duty death benefit to the troopers family. The Troopers association is actually not considered a charity by the IRS and since they have their own call center and train their employees, they're exempt from the state's do not call list.

Karen Shelton says "we won't call anyone that doesn't want to be called, if you don't want to be called simply tell the caller to remove your number from their list"

If you receive a call, the caller should identify themselves as being with the Indiana Troopers association, one other important note is that they will not ask for any money over the phone.

Instead they'll send you a pledge kit and this sticker for your car, which I'm told won't get out of a ticket. After coming under criticism in 2004 for keeping only 20 percent of money that was collected by an outside fund raising firm, "ITA" opened a call center with nearly 100 employees in West Virginia The new structure allows the association to keep all of their collected funds, around 60 percent of which goes to business expenses and 40 percent to programs.

We did find a number of complaints on line about the call center that raises money for the Angola office. The center has strict guidelines on times when they can call and every call is recorded. The Angola office receives a copy of every call to review after a complaint is filed. Deb Deuter now works for the Indiana Troopers Association after she went through the tragedy of losing her husband, Trooper David Deuter who died in a Toll Road accident in 1998.

Deb Deuter- even though you're experiencing deep grief, the money really came in handy because you still have bills to pay and I still had children in private schools.

The Indiana Troopers Alliance serves over 700 State troopers throughout Indiana and in the future they'd like to move their call center to Indiana. In your corner, I'm Ryan Elijah