Surely, you’ve heard that dreadful jingle. 1-800-Kars-4-Kids. Over and over until you give up and open your wallet or shoot the T.V., right? It might interest you to know that this a scam that should be shut down in my opinion. They will take a donation of any type. Cars, property, farms your freaking house for kids, right? Well, yes, they will take donations of many types. Let’s lift the lid on this seat in a Sani can and look into the pit below.

The fact is that the charity is very specific about which kids it sends to summer camp. Yes, that’s right, summer camp. Not school, not daycare or medical needs. Just summer camp. Now there’s nothing wrong with sending any kids to camp. I think it’s a good thing. The fact is that this charity sends only kids from the Orthodox Jewish faith from a few zip codes in NY or NJ to a couple of Jewish summer camps. But isn’t this information that should be disclosed? Wait, there’s more, much more.

For starters, the vast majority of the funds go to advertising! And that’s not all. Kars4Kids shares an office with another charity, Oorah. All the proceeds from the front company (Kars4Kids) goes to the charity Oorah. Many employees work for and draw salaries from both charities. There has been reports that a real estate venture floated by a relative of one of the executives that lost several million dollars of donation funds. Several states have successfully sued these conjoined charities for fraud and misuse of funds. The issue here is transparency.

Shouldn’t donors know that the funds donated from their states will be spent, almost to the penny, in a state other than theirs for kids? Do you think donors would like to know that a very small subset of the population will be sent from a few zip codes in two states to summer camp? Maybe a family member would be more appealing to send off to camp. Is the fact that Kars4Kids is a front company for Oorah be disclosed along with the redundant staffing?

So, before the family farm, car or Aunt Grizelda’s vacant lot is signed over to a shady charity like this, think first. Sign the assets you don’t want over to your local Synagogue or hospital, school or church. House the homeless. Anything but line the pockets of the con artists running this shabby scam!!