Red Cross donations were a fraud?

Everyone knows about the wireless program Text 2Help, which was launched about a year ago by Verizon Wireless to help gather money for the American Red Cross organization.

Today the Foundations for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights claims that the Text 2Help program was a business strategy with the mask of a charity program with a simple purpose: to make money

The customers of the cell phone companies taking part in the program could donate $5 each to the ARC just by sending a text message, to the address 2HELP (24357). As stated by The New York Times, a donation was capped at $5 and incurred fees too.

Jamie Court, the spokesman of the Foundation, told the Times that if someone would like to send a $20 donation, he or she would have to bother sending four different messages and receive a bill for these messages.

David S. Diggs, executive of the Wireless Foundation (a charity organization initiated by the industry of wireless communication) said that anti-trust concerns should prevent the carriers from waiving those service fees.

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