Alaska sues GoFundMe, PayPal, others over thousands of unauthorized charity pages Alaska Attorney General Stephen Cox announced Tuesday that the state has filed lawsuits against six crowdfunding and charity platforms, accusing them of creating online donation pages for nonprofits without the organizations’ knowledge or consent. The lawsuit names GoFundMe, PayPal Inc., Charity Navigator, JustGiving, Pledgeto, and Network for Good. Cox stated the platforms used publicly available information to generate fundraising pages for over 1 million nonprofits nationwide, including several thousand in Alaska, without obtaining permission from the charities. “Generosity depends on trust,” Cox said in a statement. He warned that some Alaskans may have donated believing they were supporting a specific charity, even though the organization did not authorize the page. The attorney general’s office claimed that unauthorized pages could have led to donors sending money to the wrong charity or receiving less than intended due to fees. The investigation began after Alaska nonprofits reported suspicious fundraising pages appearing online without their involvement. Mark Cucci, a senior assistant attorney general in the state’s Consumer Protection Unit, noted that concerns spread quickly through Alaska’s nonprofit community after reports surfaced late last year. “The nonprofits are a close-knit community here,” Cucci said. “They got together and spread the word about unauthorized donation pages on GoFundMe.” Investigators found similar unauthorized pages on multiple platforms, including sites where donors could contribute to charities without the organizations’ knowledge.#gofundme #charity_navigator #alaska_attorney_general #stephen_cox #paypal_inc
