Sham Charities

waltky · Dec 8, 2015

Charities to watch out for this holiday season...

Government says four cancer charities are shams
Tue May 19, 2015 | Washington (CNN) - Government says donors gave $187 million over four years to support luxury lifestyles, private fundraisers; Donated funds used for luxury cruises, trips to Las Vegas, shopping; FTC and 50 state regulators say charities committed nationwide fraud

In a rare joint action with attorneys general for each of the 50 states, the Federal Trade Commission says four cancer charities run by extended members of the same family conned donors out of $187 million from 2008 through 2012 and spent almost nothing to help actual cancer patients. Each of the charities charged were the subject of extensive reporting by CNN in 2013. And in each instance, none of the four charities would comment. We were ordered out of the building at the Cancer Fund of America in Knoxville, Tennessee, and were the object of an obscene gesture by the CEO of The Breast Cancer Society in Mesa, Arizona.

The Cancer Fund of America is run by James Reynolds Sr. His son James Reynolds Jr. is the CEO of the Breast Cancer Society. Another charity, the Children's Cancer Fund of America, is run by Rose Perkins, the ex-wife of the elder James Reynolds. He's also the CEO of the fourth charity, Cancer Support Services. The government says the charities claimed to provide direct support for cancer patients, breast cancer patients and children with cancer. "These were lies," the government's complaint says.

Jessica Rich, chief of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, says that in all, the charities spent about 97% of donations they received either on private fundraisers or on themselves. Only 3%, she says, went to help actual cancer patients. According to the complaint, funds donated to help cancer patients instead went for personal use, in often lavish ways. "[D]onated funds were used to pay for vehicles, personal consumer goods, college tuition, gym memberships, Jet Ski outings, dating website subscriptions, luxury cruises, and tickets to concerts and professional sporting events," the complaint says. "Most of what we are doing is bringing actions against fraud," says Rich. "And this is as about as bad as it can get: taking money away from cancer victims."

There was also what the FTC calls "rampant nepotism" at play in all of the charities. For instance, at the Breast Cancer Society, James Reynolds Jr. hired his wife, Kristina Hixson, to be his public relations manager. The complaint states that he also hired Hixson's two sisters, her son by a previous marriage, her mother and her step-nephew. According to the complaint, Hixson's mother had been a caterer. At the Breast Cancer Society, she was hired to write grant applications. Moreover,on their tax returns, each charity claimed millions of dollars in donated goods shipped to overseas locations on behalf of cancer patients. The complaint says the charities never owned any of the goods in question and simply paid a fee to a private firm in South Carolina to ship the goods, called gifts-in-kind. CNN went to Guatemala in early 2014 to investigate anyone who may have received those gifts and could find no evidence that they even existed.

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Critics raising questions over breast cancer charity's fundraising, spending tactics
November 7, 2013 - A charity in The Woodlands has raised millions in the name of breast cancer, but critics are questioning where donations are going

Breast Cancer Awareness Month ended last week, but the fight to help women battling the deadly disease continues year round. Whether or not you know someone touched by breast cancer, many make donations to the cause to show support. One of the groups asking for your money is based in The Woodlands and has raised millions. But as 13 Undercover found out, critics are raising questions about where the cash is actually going. We've tried for weeks to get those running the Breast Cancer Charities of America to sit down on camera to answer questions raised by charity watchdog groups about exactly how they spend your donations. But so far, we haven't had any luck.

The Breast Cancer Charities of America says it exists to eliminate breast cancer as a life-threatening disease. They claim to have a variety of programs, including research, education, advocacy and helping cancer sufferers overseas. But their main service is what they call the Help Now Fund. On YouTube, there's video of Erica Tullis, the charity's executive director in 2011, at a Los Angeles fundraiser for the group. "Our main service is called the Help Now Fund, and we pay for the rent and utilities for women going through breast cancer," she says in the video.

And there is also video of Tullis, just a few weeks ago, again promoting the Help Now Fund at a Conroe fundraiser for her charity. Erica says, "That is the primary program service that we have, is called the Help Now Fund. Where we go in and pay for those rent and utilities for women going through breast cancer." According to the group's publicly available IRS forms, it's received almost $45 million in public donations since it began in 2009. But its Help Now Fund has only handed out just over $187,403 to women to help pay their bills. That's less than 1 percent of the $45 million it's collected in donations. "I think it's horrendous," said Leah Napoliello with the Better Business Bureau.

The Better Business Bureau says it's unable to give the charity a grade because it has repeatedly refused to cooperate in a comprehensive review of its finances. "They say the Help Now Fund is a way to help people facing the disease, and then very little money is going to help the victims of breast cancer. So it's very misleading," Napoliello said. Get this: Of the more than 500 women who've gotten money from the Help Now Fund, the average received is just $348. And according to the charity's website, each woman who applies for financial assistance must meet specific criteria and is limited to a maximum of only $500. "That's just a drop in the bucket of the resources needed," said Ken Berger with Charity Navigator.

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waltky · Dec 18, 2015

Firefighters Charitable Foundation (FFCF)...

Head of nation’s worst firefighter charity admits ‘it’s not a good way of people giving their money’
Dec 29, 2014 - The worst firefighter charity in the nation is Long Island’s Firefighters Charitable Foundation (FFCF). How do I know it’s the worst? Well, it seems pretty bad to me that a firefighter charity is number four on this month’s updated list of America’s Worst Charities put together by the Tampa Bay Times and the Center for Investigative Reporting. But, then again, what makes Dave Statter an expert on reading these lists? And who put the biased news media in charge of telling us where to spend our money?

If you feel that way, that’s okay. I encourage everyone to be skeptical of what they read these days and to check multiple sources to verify the accuracy of the news they are digesting. I did the same and checked out FFCF on Charity Navigator, America’s largest independent charity evaluator. They put Firefighter Charitable Foundation at number three on the list of 10 Consistently Low Rated Charities. That was good enough for me. But just in case you still aren’t certain that you shouldn’t give your hard earned money to this firefighter charity, I have a third source. Would you take the word of Frank Tepedino?

Not familiar with Frank Tepedino? Tepedino is a former Major League Baseball player. He spent eight years in the Braves, Brewers and Yankee organizations, playing his last game in 1975. It would not be inappropriate to ask at this point what a former first basemen and right fielder knows about firefighter charities. The answer is that for the past eight years Frank Tepedino has been the president of the Firefighters Charitable Foundation. And, amazingly, it seems Tepedino agrees with all the bad things everyone else is saying about his charity.

Tepedino told WPIX-TV, “You know, it’s not a good way of people giving their money.” Still don’t believe it? You can hear Tepedino say those very words in the video above. Tepedino’s blunt comments would seem to indicate that he is going to change the way FFCF does business. But Frank has been frank about his charity before and nothing good happened. Way back in 2007 he told the Milwaukee Sentinel that FFCF was going to change the way it raised money. It didn’t.

Sadly, four of the 48 organizations on the America’s Worst Charities list have the word “firefighters” in their name. And they all raise money the same way FFCF does. Over the last 10 years the four charities have raised $94.5 million. That sounds wonderful, but it really sucks. That’s because only $5.6 million went to direct cash aid to the various firefighter related causes they are supposed to be supporting. The large majority of the money goes to telemarketers and solicitors who actually raise the money. In the case of these four firefighter charities that’s $82,900,000. Much of the rest of the $6 million left over goes to salaries and other overhead.

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America's Worst Charities: Our ranking based on cash paid to solicitors in the past decade
#5: Firefighters Charitable Foundation

Firefighters Charitable Foundation was created to provide financial assistance to people who have been affected by a fire or disaster. Over the past decade, its professional solicitors have been the biggest beneficiaries. From 2002 to 2011, it raised $64 million in donations and paid $55 million of that to its solicitors. The charity spent less than 10 cents of every dollar raised on direct financial assistance to those in need.

The charity's founder, Louis Pelico, left the organization in 2006. He said he couldn't reduce fundraising costs and decided he had had enough. "I tried for years to get it down. I figured if I hadn't gotten it down by now that I wasn’t going to," he said. "It’s a sword that really cuts you. It helps you and then it cuts. It’s doubled-edged." Frank Tepedino, who became president of the charity after Pelico, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinelin 2007 that he planned to slowly change the way the charity raised money. That hasn't happened.

Today, the charity pays its for-profit solicitors 90 cents of every dollar raised. Some of that money goes to a broker who arranged contracts between Firefighters Charitable Foundation and some of its telemarketers. The broker earns about 4 percent of any donations collected by the telemarketers, records show. Some industry experts say it is absurd for charities to use brokers. Lists of telemarketers are readily available and using brokers just wastes more money. Tepedino said he is trying to raise money from other sources, such as fundraising dinners and golf outings. “If you have a better way of helping us, I’m open,” he said.

In their own words: the Charity's mission
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Is the Firefighters Charitable Foundation a scam?

waltky · Apr 9, 2016

Yo Donald, where'd the other $3M go???

Report: Veteran Charities Get Fraction of Money Raised by Trump Event
Apr 08, 2016 - More than two months after Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump claimed to have raised $6 million for veterans' charities at a fundraiser held on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, most of the organizations targeted to receive the money have gotten less than half of that amount.

The Wall Street Journal, citing a survey of the 22 groups listed by Trump's campaign as prospective recipients for the money, reported that 19 organizations had obtained a total of $2.4 million from Trump's foundation or associates. Of the three other charities, one declined to disclose how much it had received, another said it needed to submit more paperwork before receiving any money, and the third didn't respond to questions by the Journal. Trump held the Jan. 29 benefit in lieu of attending a GOP debate hosted by Fox News. The real estate mogul had declined to appear at the debate, claiming that he had not been treated fairly by the network.

All 19 groups that confirmed receiving money from the Trump event got checks in the mail. Sixteen charities saw donations arrive in late February in increments of $50,000 or $100,000. The other three reported smaller donations in March, with those amounts averaging between $5,000 and $15,000. Keith David of the Task Force Dagger Foundation told the Journal that he was confused about whether a $50,000 check from Trump associate Stewart Rahr's foundation was tied to the Iowa event. He said he had been informed by a Trump representative that it was. "It's a little weird," David said. "It looks like it's from a totally separate organization."

Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, told the Journal that Trump had "distributed many of the contributions to a number of worthy organizations, and will continue to do so." She declined to say how much money raised at the event had been distributed, nor did she say how much each group had received. The Journal, citing the Trump Foundation's tax returns, reported that the nonprofit had given just $180,000 to veterans' charities over the past decade. Hicks said that amount did not include personal donations by the candidate. At least one prominent charity declined to receive any money from the January fundraiser. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) founder Paul Rieckhoff called the event a "political stunt."

http://www.military.com/daily-news/...es-get-fraction-money-raised-trump-event.html
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waltky · Mar 18, 2018

Scammers use Wounded Warriors knock-off to target Indiana victims...

4 Allegedly Stole $125K Through Fraudulent Veteran Funds
17 Mar 2018 -- Four southern Indiana residents are accused of pocketing more than $125,000 through fundraisers touted as benefiting veterans and their families.

All four were indicted on fraud charges alleging that they solicited funds from individuals and businesses in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. They allegedly pocketed more than $125,000 in cash, gift cards, merchandise and other donations to the Wounded Warrior Fund, Inc. and the Wounded Warrior Foundation, Inc.

Logo of the Clark County Sheriff's Office, which worked with the U.S. Secret Service to expose a fundraising scam that played on the sympathies of about 1,000 donors.

Prosecutors say many of the 1,000 donors were led to believe they were donating to the Wounded Warrior Project . Indicted were Clarksville residents 44-year-old James D. Linville and 38-year-old Joanie Watson and Henryville residents 42-year-old Thomas A. Johnson and 40-year-old Amy L. Bennett.

Watson's attorney says she's cooperating with investigators. Johnson's attorney declined comment. A message seeking comment was left for Linville's attorney. Bennett has no attorney. According to Stars and Stripes, the case was investigated by the Clark County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Secret Service field office in Louisville, Ky.

https://www.military.com/daily-news...le-125k-through-fraudulent-veteran-funds.html
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Fenton Lum · Mar 18, 2018

If anyone who served in these bogus wars of economic colonialism cannot be looked after via taxation because the public refuses to take a part in these wars, then I will give NOTHING to any so called charity to make up the gap.

"Support Our Troops" my ass, just another empty grand american illusion.

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