One of Australia's most successful fundraising companies has been accused of fleecing millions of dollars from the RSL. Direct marketing company Comprite, which has dominated the Queensland fundraising sector for decades with its work for charities such as the Mater Hospital and Royal Blind Foundation, faces legal action by the state branch of the RSL for more than $7 million.

The veterans group has accused Comprite - a family-owned company headed by Pam Olson, believed to be one of Queensland's richest women - of ramping up costs, over-charging management fees and using RSL staff, deployed to work withComprite, on other business ventures. Comprite has yet to respond to the RSL's claims for the $7million, made in December, but has denied any wrongdoing.

In documents, Ms Olson said Comprite's management of the RSL art unions was well-documented and audited with monthly balance sheets, profit and loss statements, job activity statements and separate audits conducted by the veterans group. Ms Olson said some RSL staff were used for other art union drives, but always with the approval of RSL executives. The RSL claim follows a forensic audit the body conducted of just under a quarter of the 214 art unions - or fundraising mail-outs - Comprite managed for it over 20 years. The RSL said in documents filed in Brisbane's Supreme Court that its claim for "not less than $7 million" was "very conservative".

This follows an audit and subsequent critical report in 2005 of the RSL's art union operations by the Queensland Office of Gaming Regulation. Queensland's Department of Treasury, which oversees gaming regulation, refused yesterday to release the report, but confirmed "some issues" arose out of the audit of the art unions in 2004. The RSL action is one of eight legal actions involving Comprite's activities over the past two years.

The case is being brought at the same time the Royal Blind Foundation of Queensland is involved in legal action with the company. The foundation wants unspecified damages and accuses Comprite of "misleading and deceptive conduct" in managing its first art union in late 2005. The foundation, which has since merged with Vision Australia, is understood to have lost $1.3million from the art union. The art union was drawn several months late after a dispute between the company and the charity.

Comprite, which initiated the legal action with the foundation after it broke off its business with the marketing company, has denied wrongdoing and is seeking $2.5 million from the charity. The company has also launched action against the RSL seeking damages.

The RSL, Blind Foundation and Mater Hospital, which engaged Comprite to run its art unions until 2002, now manage all of their own fundraising activities. The legal stoushes began after the RSL broke off a 10-year management agreement with Comprite and demanded the company's register of people who had previously bought tickets in the art union. Comprite refused, but was ordered by the Supreme Court, and later the Court of Appeal, to hand over the register - made up of millions of names and addresses it built up by managing the RSL's art union for 20 years.

Ms Olson declined to comment, but her lawyer, Stephen Russell, said the RSL's claim would be proved "baseless". Executives at the RSL and Royal Blind Foundation of Queensland also declined to comment.