'Sham' cancer charities raised $187M, used almost none on patients, suit

The younger Reynolds’ settlement will be suspended when he pays $75,000, the FTC says, and Perkins’ settlement will be suspended entirely “based on her inability to pay,” unless authorities discover they lied about their assets. Effler’s will be suspended after he pays $60,000.

Looks like all those cancer walks and runs are pretty good venues for these scammers to get piece of action. Normally, when you are donating you will look up charity's ratings but in those events people rarely look them up because marketing is so strong that everything looks in order. Even $100 a piece for few hundred people every week in some city can rack up large sums in well advertized events. They now even have "professional fundraiser" which means this must be a booming business already and FTC has barely scratched the surface.

I thought the reason why medical care costs so much was because of all the R&D that goes into it. It seems ridiculous that with all the money being poured into the industry, cancer research still needs charity support. The whole thing seems like a feel-good scam to me.

I would gladly donate to a charity that helps poor people pay for cancer treatment that their insurance doesn't cover. But I find it hard to believe that the actual R&D is underfunded.

I don't get how its taken this long to see what these companies were spending their donations on and what they were paying out. Why can't this information be on a government website that lists this information in a grid so someone like me, who isn't an accountant by any means, can view and understand the information.

err......