Judge Bars Kars4Kids from Broadcasting 'Misleading' Ads in California (nytimes.com)
58 points by xnx 2 hours ago
tptacek an hour ago
I went back on Archive.org, and it does seem to be the case that they've been up front about their religious affiliation (online) at least since 2013, when I stopped looking.
The pitch K4K has had for most of this time isn't about the good that they do so much as that they're very good at picking up your car conveniently and maximizing the IRS impact of the donation.
(Donating your car is probably not a good deal and you might be better off just having it bought and picked up by a salvager, and then taking the money and donating that.)
dec0dedab0de 32 minutes ago
People donating things aren't generally looking for a good deal.
I don't really care about the religious aspect, but if you're calling yourself kars4kids, the proceeds really should go to kids. In general, charities should have to be more up front about how their donations are being used. With rules being stricter as they get bigger. That is to say, the local fire department doesn't need to tell me how much of the hoagie sale is going to beer, but once you're buying commercials there should be some transparency.
As far as car donation options the purple heart is still around. I think at one point either the EFF or the FSF used to do it too, but I can't find it anywhere. Does anyone remember that?
tptacek 29 minutes ago
It does go to kids, it's just a religious charity for kids. That's an extremely normal thing. I'm Catholic, we have them too. And they're not hiding it.
I don't think it's a good donation! I wouldn't use it. Like I said, I'd junk the car and donate the proceeds.
pessimizer 18 minutes ago
SoftTalker 38 minutes ago
That was back in the days when if you had mortgage interest, it was to your advantage to itemize deductions and include charitable donations. With the much higher standard deductions now, far fewer people file a Schedule A.
incomplete an hour ago
they'll just need to change the jingle to be something like:
one eight hundred cars for kids, for east coast kids to fly to israel on your dime!
also, praise be <diety> that these jingles will soon be off the air.
akatechis 33 minutes ago
Jokes on us, the "east coast kids" already fly to israel on our dime...
aranchelk 32 minutes ago
The fact that the organization is Jewish is stated prominently in the article, but I’m not entirely sure why that’s relevant. Many charities in the US have religious affiliations.
The adult matchmaking etc, that deviates substantially from their advertising.
MichaelDickens 25 minutes ago
It's relevant because the fact that it's religious organization was an important fact in the judge's ruling. From the article:
> If Kars4Kids resumes advertising, [Judge Apkarian] wrote, its ads must contain “an express, audible disclosure of its religious affiliation and the geographic location of its primary beneficiaries and the age of the beneficiaries, specifying whether they aim for children or families, or both.”
aranchelk 13 minutes ago
Having to audibly name the religion/ethnicity of beneficiaries of charities is a pretty wild requirement for a US charity.
That may have been the judge’s framing, but it seems off from what I typically expect from mainstream US news.
fn-mote 13 minutes ago
To clarify the last sentence: the article says:
> Kars4Kids primarily funds a New Jersey-based Jewish organization, Oorah, which provides programs, including an adult matchmaking service, trips to Israel for teens and summer camps in New York, the judge wrote. The only program in California that Kars4Kids sponsored was a promotional giveaway of Kars4Kids-branded backpacks, she found.
MBCook 9 minutes ago
It’s still not relevant.
The charity is giving almost no money to kids. Thats the relevant part.
Doesn’t matter if it Catholic, Jewish, Scientologist, or Zoroastrian.
The law wasn’t faith based. The decision wasn’t faith based.
So why does the faith matter?
garbagewoman a minute ago
ande-mnoc 22 minutes ago
> I'm not entirely sure why that's relevant
Because they are funding young people to visit Israel and this gives it context.
MBCook 8 minutes ago
Why does Israel matter?
All that matters is very little money is going to the stated goal of helping poor kids.
Religious angles of what they’re doing instead doesn’t seem to have mattered in the ruling.
imglorp an hour ago
davsti4 43 minutes ago
Thanks for that link.
Its disappointing that when I go to nytimes now, the only HTML delivered is this: <html lang="en"> <head> <title>nytimes.com</title> <style>#cmsg{animation: A 1.5s;}@keyframes A{0%{opacity:0;}99%{opacity:0;}100%{opacity:1;}} </style> </head> <body style="margin:0"> <p id="cmsg">Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker</p> <script data-cfasync="false"> var dd='rt':'i','cid':'AHrlqAAAAAMAYl57GtItBLkAqF0sXA==','hsh':'499AE34129FA4E4FABC31582C3075D','b':2342411,'s':17439,'e':'0dea157ed708067f48ce0d08c7f23713666ae095714e7407aff1749b0c62909cb0558a3d8d1b2427045cad0fda5e06ee','qp':'','host':'geo.captcha-delivery.com','cookie':'hisUIu5NMcItx~Fvd3kG57mGOkaIgUYyUngfRyIhb6XE0N~XjhS58OOHEPPBtFncTBi11h89pGklYInh0kXQiMHeNs5Ck~KD9lhBHxPD6kvHQn5MMeeL7qX_CDvAG2BG'}</script> <script data-cfasync="false" src="https://ct.captcha-delivery.com/i.js"></script> </body> </html>
I wonder what Sir Tim Berners-Lee would have to say about that...
Quarondeau 11 minutes ago
I'm using a (Greasemonkey) userscript to automatically redirect
to:
diebeforei485 an hour ago
Hopefully I never have to hear their annoying song ever again.
tanseydavid an hour ago
"ok OK! I'll give you my car -- just make that song STOP!"
robotnikman an hour ago
I can still hear the old TV commercial in my head... 1 877 kars4kids...
ceejayoz an hour ago
I didn't realize this was an actual company; I only know of it from The Good Place.
MBCook 6 minutes ago
I knew they were real, but only from people bringing them up as an example of a horrible obnoxious commercial.
I guess they were regional and never in the Midwestern areas I’ve lived in.
ChrisArchitect an hour ago
saltyoldman 33 minutes ago
> The ads with a repetitive jingle encouraging people to donate cars do not disclose that most of the proceeds go to a Jewish organization in New Jersey, the judge ruled.
It reminds me of when they did this giant fundraiser for the palisades fire and all the money went to NGOs that didn't do ANYTHING for the fire victims.
lern_too_spel 23 minutes ago
Most of the grantees were obviously doing things for fire victims. Some of them were not obviously doing things for fire victims. Those have been described here: https://assets1.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/cms/prod_cms_alt/file/...