The “charity” telemarketing company Civic Development Group has been ordered by the Federal Trade Commission to pay an $18.8 million fine, the largest penalty ever handed down in a consumer protection case — as detailed in the American Institute of Philanthropy’s latest Report. CDG and its owners have now earned our not-so-coveted Charity Skunk Award.
According to the AIP report, CDG telemarketers lied to potential donors about the portion of moneys that would go to charity, and typically turned over not more than 15% of the moneys raised to charity. CDG fundraised for numerous local firefighter, police and veterans charities and also had contracts with several groups that received “F” ratings from AIP. Read the AIP article.
Read our May 2009 article – where we commented “The connection between sleazy ‘charities’ and paid telemarketing can’t be denied — they frequently travel together” and we encouraged donors to join us in adopting a “rebuttable presumption” approach against donating to charities that use paid telemarketers.