You've got an old car you'd like to unload, and the accord sounds appealing good: Accord it to an bureau that handles all the paperwork, get a tax answer and abutment a acceptable cause.
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It all fabricated faculty to Richard Olivier of Chatsworth, whose Canoga Park affiliate of the Knights of Columbus raises money every year for a adolescence scholarship. Aback Olivier's ancestor became too old to cautiously drive, Olivier appropriate he accord his 1997 Oldsmobile Eighty Eight to Cars 4 Causes in Ventura, which would again advertise the car and accord a allotment of the gain to the Knights of Columbus.
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FOR THE RECORD: A antecedent adaptation of this cavalcade misspelled Kars4Kids as Karz4Kidz.
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Cars 4 Causes — one of dozens of such organizations in the country — claims to accept taken in added than 200,000 cartage nationally in 17 years, with $8.6 actor account of donations in the year catastrophe in June of 2012. It calls itself "the alms that gives to charities," the nation's "most trusted" and "America's 1st agent donation charity."
But would it admeasurement up aback Richard Olivier's father, Roger, handed over the keys of his Oldsmobile?
Roger Olivier donated the car aftermost summer. In aboriginal July, he got a acknowledgment letter from Cars 4 Causes, forth with a tax certificate advertence that his car had been awash for $700.
Summer came and went, and so did the abatement season, but Roger's son Richard got no analysis from Cars 4 Causes. Then, in aboriginal December, a letter addressed to the Knights of Columbus assuredly accustomed in Canoga Park.
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"The Cars 4 Causes Agent Donation Program is admiring to present you with the amid check," said the letter.
The analysis was for $25.
Olivier was assured article in the adjacency of $500. He accurate the Cars 4 Causes website and saw the affirmation that "4.6% of our absolute costs are spent on administration and accepted expenses." It additionally says on the website that "70% of the net bargain bulk from your donation will be aggregate with the alms of your best and the blow will go to abutment Cars 4 Causes youth-oriented alms programs."
Richard Olivier said he alleged Cars 4 Causes to appeal an account as to how a $700 bargain got whittled bottomward to a $25 donation, and he was told the bureau would investigate and respond. Aback it didn't initially respond, and bootless to acknowledgment several of his buzz calls, Olivier wrote to The Times.
"It is my activity that they never advancing addition actuality able to see both ends of the transaction," he said. And that fabricated him wonder: If they're accomplishing this to the Knights of Columbus, maybe they're accomplishing it to added organizations as well.
Last Monday I collection to Cars 4 Causes — a storefront operation aloof off the Ventura Highway — with all of Richard Olivier's paperwork. I asked to allege to addition about his case and was told the agents was busy, but addition would attending into the amount and get aback to me.
Over the abutting two days, I researched a cardinal of complaints and acknowledged claims adjoin Cars 4 Causes. A class-action suit, filed aftermost year, is pending. It accuses the nonprofit of artifice and bribery and states that Cars 4 Causes "charged abrupt hidden fees and costs, such as processing fees, appellation fees, media fees and postage fees, and that such fees are taken afore any gain are absolutely broadcast to any charity."
Attorney Gilbert Perez, who filed the lawsuit, told me he searched the Cars 4 Causes website for a breakdown of such costs. "But it doesn't exist," he said.
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In 2003, the California Department of Motor Cartage and advocate general's appointment sued Cars 4 Causes, accusing it of counterfeit and ambiguous business practices. Cars 4 Causes prevailed initially, but an appellate cardinal in 2006 assured that "the announcement of chargeless towing is deceptive. The towing is chargeless to the donor, but not to the charities."
In the booming business of agent donations, Cars 4 Causes is not abandoned in cartoon scrutiny. Kars4Kids, whose "1-877" chime has the bang of a alternating migraine, was sued by Oregon and Pennsylvania for, amid added things, actuality ambiguous about which kids and programs account from car donations.
Kars4Kids is affiliated with Oorah, which promotes an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle, and a majority of the gain from car donations armamentarium a summer affected and added programs. A agent told me the nonprofit fabricated added advice accessible in clearing the acknowledged claims adjoin it.
"It ability be a lot bigger to advertise a car yourself and accord the gain to charity," said Daniel Borochoff of Charitywatch. But if you don't appetite the altercation and adopt application a car donation agency, he said, you should appeal to apperceive what all the processing and aerial costs are and how abundant of the bargain amount will be forwarded to the alleged charity.
Two canicule afterwards my appointment to Cars 4 Causes, I got a alarm from Anthony Glenn, a founding affiliate who has aloof taken over as admiral and CEO. I asked him how a $700 bargain resulted in a $25 donation.
The car was awash by an bargain abode that took 20%, he said, or $140. That larboard $560, from which $388 was subtracted for fees like towing and appellation processing, and for the amount of accomplishing business: agent salaries, insurance, rent, etc.
That larboard $172, but Glenn said Cars 4 Causes absolutely absent money on Mr. Olivier's car afterwards adding an added $211 in announcement fees. The announcement fee is based on absolute account announcement costs disconnected by the cardinal of cars it sells in a month, according to Glenn.
"We, as a policy, will accord a minimum analysis of $25 to a alms because it feels like the appropriate affair to do," said Glenn. Ah, so that's why, on amusing media, I had apparent complaints from others who concluded up with absolutely $25.
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The appropriate affair to do, it seems to me, would be to accommodate donors a bright account of how it all works, with abounding upfront acknowledgment of costs and fees. Aback I directed Glenn to his website affirmation that "4.6% of our absolute costs are spent on administration and accepted expenses," he could not explain what that meant, which is a little surprising, advancing from a founding affiliate with 17 years at Cars 4 Causes.
It's misleading, I said. To say the least.
"I don't disagree. I anticipate it should be removed immediately," Glenn said.
"We've got some problems and we're anecdotic them now and alive adamantine to fix them," he said.
He told me he hoped added advice on accurate costs would be acquaint on the website aural a week, and that the nonprofit had to do a bigger job of abiding calls from black customers. He additionally said Cars 4 Causes has to adjudge whether to abandon accepting cartage that advertise for $700 or thereabouts, because the margins are too small.
Glenn said "nobody is active the aerial life" at Cars 4 Causes, and contempo layoffs are allotment of an advancing accomplishment to trim costs in a aggressive business and advanced added money to charities. He additionally claimed the nonprofit has far added champions than detractors.
One of the former, Richard Friedlander of the Ventura amusing account bureau Kids & Families Together, told me Cars 4 Causes has been a constant adherent over abounding years. He said Cars 4 Causes has donated money and a agent as able-bodied as advantageous for a new roof on one of its buildings.
Be that as it may, Richard Olivier still isn't happy, alike afterwards Glenn alleged him to explain why the $700 bargain amount for his father's car resulted in a bare $25 donation to the Knights of Columbus.
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"I told him I acquisition that adamantine to believe," said Olivier, who will now be attractive for added means to accession money for the anniversary Knights of Columbus adolescence scholarship.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
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