Can the Career Criminals Who Don't Have Breast Cancer Count On Your Support? FTC Sues Hero Charity

Yesterday the FTC and ten attorneys general brought suit against a career international call blaster, specializing in bogus breast cancer causes with absolutely lopsided operating budgets. The "breast cancer survivor" sector is one I've always grouped with "hero charity" call premises such as "fallen police", "crippled firefighters", "wounded war veterans", and America's endless supply of dying bald children.

Within a five year stretch from 2017, kingpin Gregory B. Anderson is said to have wrung $18.25 million from a mass campaign of automated beggar calls and letters. "Founder and cancer survivor" Anderson pocketed over $775,139 in salary and perks, or 04.2 percent of the take. 09.5% was burnt on "overhead", always a conveniently vague bucket. 85.2% fell like constant rain upon Anderson's hired call centers. This is a business model we've all seen before from hero charity frauds. Without reaching for the calculator, I think you can guess what's left over for actual proceeds to purported women in need. The "non-profit" cabal dribbled $194,809 from its weep holes, barely over a penny from each dollar collected.

I think that's the first time the "One Percenters" sat at the bottom rather than the top of the income chart. Seriously, the donors would have done better pooling their money into $20 scratcher lottery tickets and sending the prizes directly to legitimate research and relief groups. The guy who won "$500,000 Payout" last year could have beaten Anderson's largesse after taxes and kept a couple grand for spiff besides.

The pink ribbons waved for Cancer Recovery Foundation International, Inc. (CRFI) and its aliases Women’s Cancer Fund, New Era Cancer Research Fund, Nutrition as Medicine, and Pink Diamond Women's Cancer Fund, all of them running from the same office in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Worse than the statistics and shifty names, what really irritated prosecutors was the clear pattern of lies told to donors, and perhaps some novel knife-twisting emotional tactics. Says the civil complaint:
    "In nearly all solicitation materials, Women’s Cancer Fund falsely claimed that donations would go to providing financial assistance to women with cancer who struggle with paying for basic living expenses including rent and utility bills. In some instances, Women’s Cancer Fund also falsely claimed that donations would go to help those women feed their children."

Pledge letters with Anderson's signature softened the marks with dreary scenery dressing like this:
    "A diagnosis of cancer is devastating. Aside from the physical and emotional toll it takes on the patient, their family, friends and caregivers, the financial strain can be immense. Time away from work and soaring medical expenses only add another hurdle to overcome."

The WCF website promised that beneficiaries could "keep a roof over their head and the lights on so they can survive cancer today". The only thing missing is Senator Katie Britt reciting this stuff from her showroom kitchen in a hoarsely trembling voice.

More galling was the trendy addition of COVID-19's ripple effects. Violins cued, donors read that the pandemic "has resulted in tripling of application for assistance to Women’s Cancer Fund", and these poor ladies running to chemo treatments would find relief from their bills. In reality, both payouts and beneficiary head counts shrank as the pandemic progressed.
    "... from 2018 to 2019 .... Women’s Cancer Fund distributed only $117,189 among 739 cancer patients. From 2020 to 2021 ... Defendants distributed only $50,670 among 542 cancer patients. ...... The average [cash] assistance provided to each cancer patient in 2018 to 2019, the years leading to the pandemic, was roughly $159. That amount fell to $93 in 2020 and 2021 ..."

WCF telemarketing scripts included yet more misdirection and lies in its "objection handlers" for the wary and nosy types, who were told that "approximately 50% of all money we raise goes to support women in treatment and recovery overcome their financial difficulties". WCF's bunch help "connect" with "resources" and "help find answers and provide emotional and spiritual support". Frequently the script readers hammered on an incomplete truth: "Absolutely – Women’s Cancer Fund is a fully registered 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization."

Unsurprising for the breed, WCF held a very loose meaning to "approximate". We can imagine what "support" its pennies bought. Some intern could run off bad photocopies of a misspelled list of assistive agencies and phone numbers and say they've "helped find answers". Different time and reason, I once saw flimsy effort like this, literally the first page of Google results on the topic, including the three sponsored hits at the top. Tick the "job done" box and move on! We could split off to another essay about why a dumb tax code filing confers no legitimacy, and I've ranted for a long time on the high-roller life a "nonprofit" front end can buy.

Speaking of which, the Federal complaint describes a board of directors full of Yes Men, "all handpicked by Anderson", who shut their eyes as he signed contracts shunting up to 90% of proceeds to the call centers and siphoned six grand a year for his "home office" and mobile phone bills. Crickets sang as he pumped donor funds into his "for-profit publishing company, Turning Point Communications" and borrowed free labor from around the CRFI office.

History repeats under many names:
    "Anderson has routinely created and dissolved non-profit organizations. Since at least 2009, he has created and operated at least ten non-profit organizations and related entities that solicited donations from the public for cancer-related causes ...."
... domestically and in Canada, France, Germany, and the UK, featuring soundalike names. Anderson routinely changes dance partners, too. He'd started the WCF blitzing with nefarious Associated Community Services, source of endless complaints on this site alone, and splinter group Directele. They got themselves sued off the map by the FTC and three-quarters of the state AGs ...
    "for making deceptive charitable solicitations in 2021, including deceptive representations about Women's Cancer Fund".

But hey, no problem. Anderson and team simply scooped up the phone scripts and pledge letters and continued apace with a new commercial fundraiser bunch, Front Line Support. What could go wrong?

"Women’s Cancer Fund" as a search term yielded several 800Notes threads loaded with steamed call recipients. Most of the activity crowded into 2018 and 2019. That tracks with a chart in the FTC complaint which suggests a steep drop in donations once COVID began strangling the US economy. Reports concern typical fallout from autodialer abuse, like the reliance on canned voices and illegally high rates of call abandonment. The calls were frequent per week or day and rotated through a presumably large supply of disposable VOIP numbers. Following are the found threads, and I don't imagine the list is complete.

https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-339-209-2441
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-412-274-7764
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-540-253-3025
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-567-234-7225
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-760-309-3996
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-762-224-0396
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-830-582-7662
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-856-245-2099

Some recipients heard from soundboard character "Molly", who liked to open with a corny joke that "its harder to reach you than it is to get my husband to cook dinner". Hehhh, hehhh, sigh ... Sexist much? Anyway, this supplies more dots to connect to a long infuriating soundboard system which has specialized in these lame opening lines, deployed for other hero charity categories. From this file set we derive such comedic gems as "you're harder to reach than the last pickle in the jar", and "I was getting my answering machine voice ready", dutifully followed by a labored chuckling.

To this part of the diagram I have lines drawn from "Informed Electorate", an older gang of obnoxious push-pollers, and similar soundboard creeps featuring recurring characters who would be right at home in a sketch humor show, who deliberately try to inflame the listener with extreme politics. This study too, is in progress and off topic.


Cancer Recovery Foundation, FTC case landing page
FTC, 10 States Take Action Against Operator of Sham Cancer Charity for Deceiving Donors - FTC press release, 11 Mar 2024
Donation vexation: FTC and 10 States challenge cancer “charity” as a sham - FTC business blog, 11 Mar 2024
FTC, 38 States, and D.C. Act to Shut Down Massive Charity Fraud Telefunding Operation - FTC press release, 04 Mar 2021, re: ACS settlement

What are the suits asking for? Or is it too early for that? I have had these calls, bet most of us have. Now if they could go after the people running the same racket for LEO, Firefighters and Vets.
Thanks for the post, it's good news.

There's no dollar amount in the Prayer, just the usual blanket mix of injunction, disgorgement, forfeiture, legal fees, making the entire C-suite perform "I'm a Little Teapot" in the nude. They still need to run discovery and find all the loose assets.

Interestingly, the violation count pages name every broken state law in addition to Federal. Looks like when the dust clears, each participant state gets to sink a shovel in the treasure chest. This follows the format of the sprawling 2021 ACS case.

Not surprisingly, the FTC wants brakes on the operation because it's likely to keep on dialing for dollars and hiding facts despite three years of FTC scrutiny. There's a taste of the obstruction late in the complaint:
    "... as Defendants knew, the overwhelming majority of donations were used to benefit Anderson and the fundraisers. Indeed, in a board meeting dated May 6, 2022, when the board discussed whether to dissolve Women’s Cancer Fund, “Mr. Anderson noted that if [Women’s Cancer Fund] dissolved, it would negatively impact several vendors, Engage/Frontline in particular.”"

Yes, because it's the welfare of dialing vendors which really matters here. Later it's hinted how much trouble it took to extract that above quote:
    "... upon learning of the FTC’s investigation into them, Anderson appears to have doctored board minutes, altering information he perceived as harmful for his and Women’s Cancer Funds’ defenses. For example, Mr. Anderson’s statement ... [my prior quote] ... was deleted from the minutes of the May 6, 2022 board meeting that Anderson produced to FTC staff in response to a Civil Investigative Demand"

Your wish list was addressed in the big ACS case, which lists a Kellogg's Variety Pak of hero charity groups behind some 1.3 billion busker calls. Some of them won slots in the wondrous "America's Worst Charities" roster assembled by the Center for Investigative Reporting and Tampa Bay Times last decade.

The FTC complaint's insider description of the soundboard operator's juggling act is itself worthy of review. This was another cabal known for dopey icebreaker jokes, like another groaner used for Women’s Cancer Fund:
    "Getting hold of you is harder than getting my husband to pick up his socks!"

Their writers must have a fixation on lazy husbands. Maybe they need the donor money for long term psychiatric care.

The time allotted for discovery will no doubt give plenty of time for these scumbags to stash their ill-gotten gains in an offshore account.

They'll be back...unless and until they see some serious jail time.

This must have been the outfit that called me from this number.  No stupid husband jokes, though.

I think there was a Breast Cancer call report over in WCM either late yesterday or early today. This outfit will not die easy.