Some of the fake veterans charities prohibited from soliciting charitable contributions included:
- Help the Vets (HTV) — founded by G. “Paul” Paulson, Sr. and operating under the names American Disabled Veterans Foundation, Military Families of America, Veterans Emergency Blood Bank, and Vets or Veterans Fighting Breast Cancer. HTV collected $20 million in donations over four years and promised donors that it would help disabled and wounded veterans. However, it did not use any of those funds to fulfill its promise to donors.
- Veterans of America, also operating under the names, Vehicles for Veterans LLC, Saving our Soldiers, Donate Your Car, Donate That Car LLC, Act of Valor and Medal of Honor. The founder of this fraudulent veterans charity is Travis Deloy Peterson, who uses robocalls to encourage people to donate cars, boats and other things of value. He sold the donations for his own benefit.
The FTC charged both fraudulent veterans charities and its founders with violating the FTC Act and the commission’s telemarketing sales rule. State regulators also filed enforcement actions against them.
