BOSTON – Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell joined 20 other attorneys general in a letter to GoFundMe, a crowdsource fundraising platform, to express concern over allegations that the website created fundraising pages for over 1.4 million charities without their prior knowledge or consent.
The letter cites a report by an ABC affiliate in California about the pages being created.
The attorneys general said that GoFundMe creating the pages left the charities unable to have control of their fundraising or brand. The letter also said that included within GoFundMe’s created pages with the following issues:
- Inaccurate Charity Information: some pages provided inaccurate names, logos, social media sites, and charitable purposes of many charities were displayed on the pages created by GoFundMe.
- Disclosure about Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) Structure: some pages did not clearly disclose that contributions were made to a DAF sponsor rather than the featured charity, explain the nature of a DAF vehicle or its implications for donor intent and fund distribution, and thereby risked deceiving and confusing the public.
- Impression of Charity Affiliation: the overall page presentations likely gave donors the impression that the pages were operated by, or directly affiliated with, the named charities.
- Default Tip: GoFundMe’s donation pages may have applied a default “tip” of approximately 16.5% intended to pay GoFundMe directly.
The letter also says that GoFundMe may have violated various laws related to charitable solicitation and consumer protection in multiple states, including failing to obtain required consent, deceptive or misleading conduct, and insufficient or omitted disclosures…