Charity Fraud and How to Fight It

One of the first things that made me wonder how my parents were doing was their changing habits around donations. I started to see my mother write checks to charities that they had never previously supported. As a career, I had worked in marketing for associations and businesses and was an experienced direct mail campaign professional. What I saw in those letters made me queasy.

I would read language like "Thank you for your pledge" when I know my parents had never pledged to these organizations. However, the greatest generation is known for being people of their word. They didn't realize this was an assumptive close concept and would write checks to fulfill the commitment they believed they must have made. Others showed up looking like a bill, so it got paid.

I had no idea how prevalent it was for older adults to get lured into giving to charities until I started to work with other older adults to pay their bills.

I knew it made my mom feel good to write those checks. However, what I didn’t know at the time was that that first donation turned my mom into a charity magnet and it resulted in a magnitude of mail NO ONE wants to manage.

Many good charities have turned over the solicitation to for-profit companies that get and sell your name. It turns out that is why giving to one charity can often create a cascade of new mail solicitations.

The best way to give to a charity is to contact them and donate directly. You can ask them to ONLY contact you once a year, but since every charity is different, the best way to give is to initiate your own donations. For many of our clients, we do this near the end of the year after we have seen how the cash flow went and discuss it with their tax preparer.

One of my first clients was giving away over $2,000 using her memorized credit card number. The same organizations were calling her several times a week and she was donating $10 each time ... but didn't remember she already donated to them. She was living alone and in the early stages of Cognitive Impairment. She would ALWAYS answer the phone and would rattle off her credit card number. When I asked her what her giving intentions were, it was way below the amount she was donating. At a family meeting we discussed getting a new credit card number and helped her write checks to the charities that were most important to her and aligned with her past giving habits. The number of solicitations she got weekly filled a USPS mail tub. Her name was on the "do not mail" list and she moved twice before the volume of solicitations finally dwindled.

Never donate to charities that have called you. This is easy to say, but most of the clients we work with are compelled to answer the phone and oh boy, are those callers persuasive! Often, we end up putting a note by the telephone to remind them that "I never give to telephone solitictors. Take me off of your list."

My experience resulted in me being interviewed on?The Perfect ScamSM?—?a project of the?AARP Fraud Watch Network , which equips consumers with the knowledge to recognize and avoid scams. Charity Watch offers additional tips and you can visit their website to check out the charities you like.

It is a common experience. You show up at your loved ones’ home and see the piles of mail. I hope this gives you some ideas for you or any loved ones you are helping.