OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond is accusing GoFundMe of previously creating unauthorized donation pages for more than 1.4 million charities without their consent.
Drummond, who joins a coalition of 21 Attorney Generals from other states, published a letter highlighting GoFundMe's alleged misconduct. The coalition claims that GoFundMe used public IRS data to build pages containing fraudulent information to mislead donors.
"Oklahomans who give to charitable causes through GoFundMe deserve to know their money is actually reaching the organizations they intend to support," said Drummond. "GoFundMe exploited the goodwill of donors and the reputations of legitimate charities seemingly for its own financial gain. We are demanding full accountability and transparency, and we expect GoFundMe to comply quickly."
The coalition believes that the act violates several state charitable solicitation and consumer protection laws. GoFundMe was given 14 days to remove all unauthorized donation pages and provide further transparency.
A GoFundMe spokesperson sent this statement:
"GoFundMe is committed to helping nonprofits reach new donors by making it easier for the millions of people on our platform to discover and support the causes they care about. Nonprofit Pages were created using publicly available information to help people support nonprofit organizations, with donations going to the intended nonprofit."
"After hearing feedback from nonprofit leaders in October, we acted quickly to make Nonprofit Pages fully opt-in, removed and de-indexed unclaimed pages, and turned off search engine optimization by default. The immediate changes we made in October directly addressed the concerns outlined in the letter received today from the state Attorneys General, and reflect our continued commitment to transparency, accountability, and partnership with the nonprofit sector. We welcome the opportunity to share with the Attorneys General the concrete steps we have already implemented in response to the issues raised."
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