Lately, however, this crowded field has been inundated by fraud, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
The FTC launched Operation Donate with Honor in July to spotlight the problem of fraudulent and deceptive fundraising on behalf of military and veterans’ causes.
"It’s war profiteering," Joshua Starks, commander of the 300,000-strong Oklahoma Veterans of Foreign Wars told Fox News. "They’re stealing from people who raised their hand and took an oath to serve our country and then went overseas to protect the rights of all of us--including the people who are stealing from them."
As part of Operation Donate with Honor, the FTC distributed a list of 102 law enforcement actions 34 states have lodged against bogus veterans’ charities. Some are recent. Others are newly filed. The FTC is a partner in two of the new cases.
The list laid bare the many ways these groups solicit donations‐online, on the phone, by mail, door-to-door and at stores and supermarkets.
Officials said these legal actions share a common theme: the false promise to help needy and disabled vets, to provide veterans with employment counseling, mental health counseling or other assistance and to send care packages to deployed service members.
In many cases, the lion’s share of each dollar donated was paid to telemarketers instead of veterans. In some cases these telemarketers charged a fee of 85 cents of every dollar.
One charity that is named is Help the Vets.
Donors contributed $20 million to the Florida charity from 2013 to 2017. But the charity spent few of the dollars that were collected to assist veterans, the FTC said.
"Help the Vets spent more than 95% of the millions it collected paying its founder, fundraisers, and on expenses," FTC Chairman Joe Simons said.
The charity swindled donors through shameless solicitations, according to a lawsuit the FTC filed to coincide with the kick-off of Operation Donate with Honor.
"But for thousands of disabled veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, ’giving an arm and a leg’ isn't simply a figure of speech- it's a harsh reality," says one Help the Vets solicitation. "Your $10 gift will mean so much to a disabled veteran."
However, Help the Vets’ assistance to these unfortunate veterans consisted of vouchers for chiropractic treatment at a clinic, the FTC charged. Only five vouchers were ever redeemed.
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