Scams...

[Lewkowski]

Animals should fry.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...2a4_story.html

"A group of four cancer philanthropies bilked donors across the country out of $187 million, the Federal Trade Commission charged Tuesday in what the agency called one of the largest government actions against charity fraud."

"Perkins and the younger Reynolds have agreed to settle the charges against them, and they will be banned from fundraising and charity management. The Children’s Cancer Fund of America and the Breast Cancer Society will be dissolved."

How the hell aren't these bastards going to prison? America is too soft on crime, its disgusting.

[LittleFuzzy]

Because donations aren't transactions. They are freely-given gifts and hence it is very hard to make a case for criminal fraud. This has nothing to do with being soft on crime, this is about your usual addlepated inability to recognize what constitutes a crime and what does not.

[Lewkowski]

Because donations aren't transactions. They are freely-given gifts and hence it is very hard to make a case for criminal fraud. This has nothing to do with being soft on crime, this is about your usual addlepated inability to recognize what constitutes a crime and what does not.

How the bloody hell is that not criminal fraud? Misappropriation of funds seems clear here. And you know what... if it wasn't an offense that could lead to prison time than that is just ANOTHER way we are being soft on crime. This is theft. If I give you $500 dollars to pass on to my friend and you take the money yourself and never deliver - that's theft. How is this not theft?

Let me ask you this fuzzy if you could wave a magic wand and determine the punishment of these parasites what would it be?

[RandBlade]

Because donations aren't transactions. They are freely-given gifts and hence it is very hard to make a case for criminal fraud. This has nothing to do with being soft on crime, this is about your usual addlepated inability to recognize what constitutes a crime and what does not.

Money is freely given in Ponzi schemes too, doesn't stop it being illegal. Similarly for donations I've seen charity cases end up in prison before. The key to a successful prosecution for fraud is surely whether there was any dishonesty. If its possible to prove some dishonesty it should be possible to convict for fraud. If not it'd be a lot tougher.

In general it seems like this sort of activity should be harder to do in the name of "charity". Are charities regulated in the US? Here major charities register as Registered Charities and have to submit accounts (like Limited Companies do). To meet charitable status certain criteria need to be met.

I though the USA had similar rules? EG I know that Foundations need to give away 5% of their worth each year to maintain Foundation status. It should be possible to avoid a situation that people are giving to what is supposed to be a charity only for 97% of the money to be misappropriated.

[LittleFuzzy]

Money is freely given in Ponzi schemes too,

No, no it's not. Money handed over in Ponzi schemes is typically supposed to be invested in some way. There are contractual obligations on how that money is to be used and it isn't.

Similarly for donations I've seen charity cases end up in prison before.

So have I, but the ones I've seen don't revolve around vague dishonesty. They involve misappropriation, embezzlement, or much more specific lies. If you drum up donations with presentations outlining exactly how that money is going to be spent and it isn't spent in any such manner, for instance, then you've got provable misrepresentation. If you've just got a flyer with a detachable donation slip with some death statistics and the slogan "Help us fight Cancer!" . . . well misrepresentation is a lot harder to prove.

[LittleFuzzy]

Except they did deliver. Only a small proportion, but they did send some of the money on. It wasn't misappropriation because those weren't another's funds, they were literally given to these people's organizations, to dispense as they felt necessary. Some proportion of donations always goes to overhead, it has to. If they'd taken money specifically earmarked for particular purposes and not moved it on to those then they'd be criminally liable but even most legitimate "clearinghouse" charities won't accept earmarked donations because there isn't a cheap or easy way to make certain it gets used properly. These people certainly didn't accept earmarked funds, or they'd have actually been charged.

It's not theft because money wasn't given to pass on to a friend, or a research group. It was given to their charitable organizations, as support and funding for their "efforts" in the fight for those causes.

There's plenty of room to go after these people civilly and the government did in fact do so. Just not criminally. And that's not because people are being "soft" on crime. That's because crime is, by necessity, pretty strictly defined. You've made your own protests against the abuses of laws which aren't, or which are written in sufficient detail that they become too large and unwieldy for laypeople to comprehend anyway. Pick your poison Lewk, you can't have it both ways.

[Lewkowski]

Let me ask you this fuzzy if you could wave a magic wand and determine the punishment of these parasites what would it be?

[LittleFuzzy]

Doesn't matter since A) it's not a death sentence which is your universal answer to crime and B) I am and always have been mostly interested in how the world is than in trying to construct some personal utopia and pretending the world should be brought into alignment with it. I'm mostly interested in stopping unwanted behavior. Your and your obsession with punishment verges on an unsociable fetish, Lewk.

[Lewkowski]

Doesn't matter since A) it's not a death sentence which is your universal answer to crime and B) I am and always have been mostly interested in how the world is than in trying to construct some personal utopia and pretending the world should be brought into alignment with it. I'm mostly interested in stopping unwanted behavior. Your and your obsession with punishment verges on an unsociable fetish, Lewk.

People are deterred by punishment. There are two reasons people don't choose to do something unethical for their gain.

1. Their moral code. (This doesn't work when the assholes don't have a moral code like these bastards)
2. Fear of the consequences.

Increase the consequences - get less of the behavior that is bad.

[agamemnus]

History has shown that a country that does not obey the law quickly becomes a country not worth living in.

[Aimless]

What happened here seems, intuitively, to be extremely wrong, in terms of morality. It is also something that society should find ways to discourage. However, it does not seem to be a crime and I think it may be difficult to define their actions as criminal without running into problems that would be unacceptable for sane people.

There is at least one organisation that rates these charities. In a world where you can't take anything at face value, donors should perhaps be expected to exercise due diligence in evaluating who should our should not get their hard earned cash in the form of donations. I understand that there is a personal element to your reaction but I must say I'm a little surprised by this seemingly inconsistent position on voluntary transactions between adults.

[Lewkowski]

What happened here seems, intuitively, to be extremely wrong, in terms of morality. It is also something that society should find ways to discourage. However, it does not seem to be a crime and I think it may be difficult to define their actions as criminal without running into problems that would be unacceptable for sane people.

There is at least one organisation that rates these charities. In a world where you can't take anything at face value, donors should perhaps be expected to exercise due diligence in evaluating who should our should not get their hard earned cash in the form of donations. I understand that there is a personal element to your reaction but I must say I'm a little surprised by this seemingly inconsistent position on voluntary transactions between adults.

Voluntary? They thought the money was going to charity and it wasn't. That's fraud.

[Ominous Gamer]

3% of it did. So where is the line for fraud and legit? Cause even the more famous national charities have shit percentages, granted not 3% bad but still awful.

[Aimless]

Why didn't they check charitywatch or the like?

[Ominous Gamer]

Again I ask, where is the line between fraud and legitimate use of donations?

How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti and Built Six Homes

[Wraith]

9% to Red Cross overhead
24% to Red Cross program management or other

I may be confused about the meaning of "overhead" here.

I'm a little suspicious of the article since they seem to be comparing apples to oranges in a few places (like the above numbers, which were about a specific project and was compared to claims about all regional activities), as well as some misleading statements (they lead with only building six homes for half a billion, but scattered throughout the article you pick up on a bunch of other things Red Cross did). It's probably still worse than what should be expected of an organization like the Red Cross, but I'd like to hear some type of rebuttal from some place. From the sound of it, any wastefulness was due to incompetence and inefficiency and not corruption, so there's that at least.

[RandBlade]

I agree entirely, hence my follow-up sentence about provable dishonesty in order to prove fraud. With hundreds of millions involved I'd expect something that can be proved at court, but you'd need that in order to get a successful prosecution.

[GGT]

Lewk, shouldn't you be complaining about how most "scams" use vulnerabilities in the insurance industry?