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
Alaska accuses crowdfunding websites of violating law, using charities’ names without their consent The state of Alaska filed civil lawsuits Tuesday against six crowdfunding websites, accusing them of illegally soliciting donations for thousands of Alaska charities without consent. In complaints filed at Anchorage Superior Court, the consumer protection unit of the Alaska Department of Law said GoFundMe, PayPal, Charity Navigator, Pledgling Technologies, JustGiving and Network For Good each violated the Alaska Charitable Solicitations Act thousands of times. That act, in place since 1993, requires state registration for anyone who seeks donations on behalf of a charity. The suits ask a judge to order the sites shut down the pages devoted to Alaska nonprofits and immediately disburse any donations to those nonprofits. It also asks for “separate civil penalties … of not less than $1,000 and not more than $25,000 per violation.” According to the complaints, the six crowdfunding sites scraped IRS data to obtain the information of thousands of Alaska nonprofits, then set up donation pages for each of those nonprofits without their consent. That scraping was part of a nationwide campaign that encompassed almost a million and a half federally registered organizations. In some cases, the sites charged fees or encouraged “tips” to themselves during the donation process. In many cases, they poured donations into a third-party account and only released donations to charities who stepped forward to claim them, according to the complaints. Attorney General-designee Stephen Cox said the state became aware of the issue after California reporters and state officials began investigating why GoFundMe created donation pages for 1.4 million nonprofits without their consent or knowledge.#gofundme #alaska #paypal #charity_navigator #pledgling_technologies
