104 Lose Jobs as Eveleth Company Shuts Down

EVELETH - More than 100 people are without jobs on the Iron Range after a St. Cloud-based company shut down operations in Eveleth.Meyer Teleservices, a telemarketing company, shut down without any notice -- leaving behind a lot of debt and former employees jobless."I owe $3 million and I've got $500,000 in receivables," said Meyer Teleservices Owner and CFO Gary Owen.In total, 104 people lost jobs in Eveleth."You know we did the best we could. Eveleth, we had good employees up there. They did a good job for us," said Owen.Meyer Teleservices opened in 1977 to raise money for the Democratic Party.Owen says decreasing landlines isn't the only issue that lead to the decline of the company."With politicians and committees and state organizations moving toward internet fundraising there's less demand for the phone fundraising that was done traditionally in the past," said Owen. "We lost $700,000 last year and in January and February we also lost money and we just exhausted all kinds of credit and funds," said Owen.Last May the company considered filing for bankruptcy."I contributed almost $400,000 into the company and the former owner, Larry Meyer, contributed another significant sum of money into the company and it just wasn't enough money left to run it," added Owen.The IRRRB gave the company two loans totaling $650,000, $250,000 of which still needs to be paid back."We have collateral and so we can take control of the assets that are inside the building up here and get money from that and so that's one piece we can look at," said IRRRB Commissioner Tony Sertich.Right now the company is in the process of collecting money from clients.Once they have the money, they'll hand it out."First priority is to pay all the employees, pay the government their taxes, and then everyone else will get to divvy up what's left," said Owen.Meyer Teleservices has two other locations, one in St. Cloud and one in Little Falls.The location in Eveleth lost more jobs than those two combined.