Cue the sad music, pictures of horrifically abused dogs and cats, followed by the pitch for animal lovers to donate their hard-earned money to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), and you’ve got the making of a scam that would make the devil himself blush.
That’s because this organization, not to be confused with the real American Humane Society, does not actually run a single pet shelter in these here United States. The HSUS has zero ties to Colorado’s actual humane societies and pet shelters that do good work across the state, such as the Denver Dumb Friends League.
HSUS has been at the center of a national controversy over its charitable scheme for several years but the showdown appears to have just shifted to Colorado and the desk of Wayne Williams, Secretary of State.
Nearly 30 sportsmen groups are asking Williams to investigate HSUS’s charitable solicitation scheme in Colorado. According to a letter obtained by Peak Politics, the HSUS raises money on the blood of abused pets to fund their radical political agenda, which just happens to include banning two of Colorado’s chief industries, hunting and agriculture.
Here is the crux of the complaint, which states that the ads show abused and neglected puppies and kittens in deplorable conditions, inferring that donations will be used to right that wrong.
An analysis of the ads by the Center for Consumer Freedom showed that 85 percent of the animals were dogs and cats, in reality, HSUS gave just one percent of its annual budget to rescue, shelter and care for pets. Therefore, the representation HSUS makes through its charitable solicitations are in conflict with how the money is actually spent.
Essentially, it’s a bait and switch scheme that is illegal under the Colorado Charitable Solicitation Act.
The Center has previously issued reports using HSUS’s tax returns to show how little of your donations go to pet shelters. While HSUS will undoubtedly respond with some technical loophole to try to squirm its way out of this mess, the facts are the facts: HSUS raises money using starving and injured puppies and kittens to fund liberal political activities that have virtually nothing to do with pets. While such deceit may pass muster in Washington D.C., Colorado’s elected officials remain grounded enough to call a spade a spade.
It seems like an investigation is absolutely necessary to ensure that Colorado citizens are not falling victim to such seemingly fraudulent schemes. In the meantime, when you and your family donate to an animal charity—make sure it goes to one that actually cares for pets.
Marty Cutler
Fair enough response. Berman seems like a pompous geezer, but I do appreciate HumaneWatch – especially the Document Library because HSUS doesn't exactly make it's (factual) financials readily available.
The direct mail issue is tied to the shelter issue because the begging letters are written by Market Development Group and the accompanying guilt gifts are produced in Hong Kong sweatshops by the disgraced mail mill Quadriga Art. CNN's Investigative Team spent three years investigating Quadriga and you can read dozens of articles and blog postings on the CNN website. One notorious Quadriga client CNN investigated is SPCA International, which was created by long-time former HSUS CEO Paul Irwin. Irwin's son Craig runs Convergence Direct Marketing, which partners with Quadriga and was fined $300,000 by the NY Attorney General last year. Quadriga had to cough up $25 million. HSUS's ties with Quadriga go much further but I am not going to disclose the names of those HSUS perps – to you. But I urge you to go to page 8 of the HSUS IRS returns and you will see the list of the 5 highest paid contractors. Quadriga is right there with the millions spent each year to bombard animal lovers with pleas for money. If you approve of all of this, I won't try and change your mind. But CNN and the NY AG strongly disagree and to the best of my knowledge, do not reek of the stench of animal abuse apologists. You might want to ask HSUS why there is no formal contract between HSUS and Quadriga – something that is required by law and something that the various veterans and other crooked charities CNN investigated at least have fundraising contracts that can be viewed online.
On page 8, you will also find HSUS's other mail mill, which is worse than Quadriga. The 990's list a subsidiary of Market Development Group called National Outdoor Sports Advertising. MDG is just the parent company and NOSA is the direct mail division. Quadriga also has layers of subsidiaries. The boxes filled with letters written by MDG are targeted to naive pet lovers and are filled with shelter-oriented sales pitches. I started collecting them because they had a stench about them that bothered me and I was taking a couple of classes on Nonprofit Management at the time. When I started getting deluged with countless letters from HSUS affiliates – and six separate sweepstakes mailings, I got pissed and started looking into it. What I found angered me and still does. Please read "French Investigators Look Into Charities" from the Wall Street Journal – it is all about a fake charity syndicate MDG runs in France and it's a drop in the bucket. Most of the action is in China and the UK. MDG is now under the microscope in the UK because of it's sweepstakes scams. MDG has a front charity called Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation that is the centerpiece of much of the fraud. Google "Attorney General Blumenthal Cease and Desist Sweepstakes Diabetes Research and Wellness Humane Society Wildlife Land Trust."
Ugly stuff and I'm sure Market Development Group and HSUS and Quadriga never thought it would be brought to light. HSUS and MDG have attempted a coverup of some online documents, but it is decades and billions of dollars too late to make it go away.
Most of my own research on all of this has been shared with parties that have nothing to do with Berman. Nathan Winograd said it best with his article "Frenemies" about how HSUS obsessively blames CCF every time it gets exposed for such things as raising money for Michael Vick's dogs while lobbying to have them euthanized. I am actually on the side of Animals 24/7 regarding the risks of rehoming dogfighting victims, but the 52 Vick dogs were impounded in crummy municipal shelters because they were evidence in a criminal case, Pacelle told the NY Times that he had no idea how they were being kept, HSUS raised millions to "provide care along with shelters" and when caught in that scam, rushed $5000 to one of the shelters. That STINKS worse than toxic sludge.
Diane King : No, I wouldn't—and particularly not at the hands of a con artist like Berman. Aside from the name calling (yes, I started it), I don't see Berman as a healthy vehicle for your criticisms of HSUS. It's obvious that his major card appears to be how much money HSUS gives to shelters, with an occasional nod to someone who no longer supports HSUS. It's suspect, and it's cheesy.
I've found very little online about the mail fraud you allege is coming from HSUS. send me some good, non-partisan links, and I'll be sure to check them out. Meanwhile, kindly do yourself a favor and check out what Berman supports. Granted, he's a thorn in the side to many Liberal causes,and I'm not unaware that this is a Conservative blog, but he argues dishonestly—more so than your perception of the way HSUS deals. Personally, I doubt that Berman could give a rat's ass about animal welfare.
Marty Cutler I smell the stench of HSUS's direct mail fraud ever since I was a member and during the many years it took to get off all the mailing lists. The shelter issue is an obvious one and it has been criticized by far more people than Berman and the HSUS's political opponents.
I am happy that HSUS's direct mail/kickback/money laundering fundraising companies are getting exposed and successfully investigated. I learned much of what I know about the long-running scheme from Animal People Newspaper and it's watchdog reports. The whole issue of direct mail profiteers I learned about in that newspaper going back to 2000 really angered me. I also like the many articles on the Terrierman blog, written by a 30 year direct mail fundraising veteran and summing up how these operations – particularly HSUS's – work.
Berman's efforts simply provide me a vehicle to share this with the media and state charity regulators. I'm sure HSUS appreciates that. Shelter deception is charity fraud, but the MDG-Quadriga-HSUS dealings here and overseas are criminal fraud. Do spread the word. You wouldn't want animal lovers to be victimized by career con artists, would you?
Diane King : And yet, despite your rat's nest of evasions into direct-mail conspiracies, the article indicts HSUS on its failure to contribute to animal shelters. I smell the stench of Rick Berman. Prevarication: have someone translate that one for you.
Firat of all, you sub-literate morons, You would be the one who infers. The proper use for you would be implies.
Second, HSUS is NOT in the business of donating to shelters.
Here's what they have done this year:
• Strengthening the U.S. Anti-Cruelty Framework: South Dakota became the 50th state to adopt felony-level penalties for animal cruelty, the capstone of our 25-year campaign to establish strong penalties for malicious cruelty in every state.
• Ending the Era of Extreme Confinement of Animals on Factory Farms: We secured commitments from some of the nation’s largest pork producers, like Smithfield Foods and Cargill, to abandon gestation crates.
• Rounding Up Horse Slaughterers: We blocked horse slaughter plants from opening on U.S. soil through legal action in the courts and provisions in congressional spending bills.
• Tightening Puppy Mill Regulations: We helped secure a U.S. Department of Agriculture rule prohibiting the import of puppies into the United States from foreign puppy mills, and we helped defend a rule applying animal welfare standards to online puppy sellers.
• Banning Cruel Animal Experiments: We persuaded India to ban animal testing for cosmetic products and helped China repeal its requirement that domestically produced cosmetics be tested on animals. In Europe, our team worked on a program to prevent chemical testing on hundreds of thousands of animals.
• Striking Blows Against Sealing and Whaling: The World Trade Organization largely upheld the EU’s ban on the trade in products of commercial seal hunts, while the International Court of Justice ruled that Japan’s Southern Ocean whaling program violates international rules against commercial hunting of the ocean’s most majestic creatures.
• Securing Gains for Wolves: In Michigan, we and our coalition partners decisively won two ballot measures to bar wolf hunting, and a month later, we won a federal court ruling reestablishing federal protections for wolves throughout the Great Lakes.
• Passing Ivory and Rhino Horn Bans: At our urging, the New York and New Jersey legislatures banned the sale of ivory — the first state laws of their kind.