Comments on: Fraudulent charity warning: Macular Degeneration Association / American Medical Research Organization

By: justin h

justin h — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:23:55 +0000

I ran across this bunch and saw something new. The Brian Curro fellow is out. By his linkedin profile, he is now running the Parkinson’s disease arm of the charity. The Macular Degeneration Association is now headed by some Donna Auger woman, who’s last work seems to have been a pharmacy technician at Walmart, its not even funny. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/donna-auger/13/ab2/826. When I used google to look for them after getting their mail I saw another group out there called American Macular Degeneration Foundation http://www.macular.org/. They look like they are in massachussets and they looked fishy too, so I asked my sister in lawwho works in a charity about how to do research on them. She turned me on to guidestar website http://www.guidestar.org. Sure enough you can get tax info. I can’t find macular degeneration but that American Macular Degeneration Foundation group has some old taxes on the site. The leaders have over $400,000 in loans to themselves for things like home imporvement. Shame! I checked out the American Health Foundation and at least found a lot of stuff about how they spend money on guidestar. there is a lot of research and they spend about There are other groups like macular degeneration foundation that look ok, but small. and Foundation Fighting Blindness that doesn’t have much on guidestar, but look like the biggest one of the bunch, the american health foundation and foundation fighting blindness are my picks. American Health Foundation has a lot of extra stuff on guidestar, foundation fighting blindess doesnt have much. Foundation Fighting Blindness looks like it makes the biggest grants overall though.

By: Jay

Jay — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:08:03 +0000

I thought the letter I received from MDA to be amateurish; The red flag to me was the lack of any specifics of how MDA is helping people. I also thought that having an umbrella organization (American Medical Research Organization) appeared strange. I did a search – your link popped up and I read your posting. I visited their website and noticed the “parkinson” (HTML) tags on the website (how sloppy – that tells me they copied another wedsites’ coding and then only half way modified it). Similar to their letter, there was a real lack of information there. I then read the responses to your posting. That confirmed all I needed to know about MDA and the Parkinson’s Research Foundation. I wonder how many other “foundations” there are that are linked to these guys.

By: concerned grandson

concerned grandson — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:45:57 +0000

google mr curro’s name, and you will find multiple myspace and facebook accounts as well as your fraud warning. on one myspace, there is a huge Marine advert/banner. I didn’t read too far into it, but if he’s soliciting funds and claiming a marine affiliation, he’d better hope he really has a service record. there are also multiple accounts on all manner of free sites that show the same man (sometimes pictured w/ a beer can) claiming to be a personal trainer and the head of different companies and ventures. if the pictures weren’t there, i’d have my doubts, but this is the same person again and again. i don’t know of any reputable director of a charity this is also the director of another charity and is a personal trainer, marathon runner, website banner creator, etc. thanks again for your work on this.

By: concerned grandson

concerned grandson — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:22:36 +0000

In removing my grandparents from over 50 solicitation lists, I found that the Macular Degeneration Association and the Parkinson Research Foundation have the same Florida PO BOX and that even though they have differnt area codes, their phones are answered by the same system and the same voice. No calls are ever returned. This is clearly a fraud. I phoned the Florida Attorney General’s Office to add an out of state complaint to the one shown on the blog, and was asked to use their online complaint form. Hmmm. Also, it seems Brian Curro has a Facebook page showing what bars and “luxury locations and events” he likes. http://www.facebook.com/bcurro This looks like the guy on the website. There is another site showing that Brian Curro is soliciting money to run a marathon. This is unreal. I know how easily things can get out of hand on the net, but I can’t believe that all of these accusations and shady coincidences are the result of a goole dopple. Beware, and bravo to all of you for posting these things.

By: jik

jik — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:52:49 +0000

No response was received.

By: sfchevre

sfchevre — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:55:09 +0000

It appears that the MDA has now launched a “2009 Eyes of California” campaign. In reading all of the comments above, and particularly those relating to Mr. Curro’s unwillingness to respond to the issues raised by Mr. Kamens, it would be most helpful to those who take the time to follow this issue if Mr. Kamens would post the response that he received from the Florida Attorney General.

By: sarasota

sarasota — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:30:35 +0000

Thank you for repeating my words. . . while it would be great to have such a whistleblower. . none exists within his organization . . .they prefer their salaries . . .physicians who he pays prefer his money. . .and other non profits stay out of the line of fire. An outside source should audit his activities as most of his money is out of state direct mail, given by innocent people who have no idea who they are giving to. I’m sorry I don’t have much more to say on the subject. It looks like it will just die on the vine here. Too bad.

By: jik

jik — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 02:28:11 +0000

Everything in your original post is true and are well-known facts among those who have worked with Mr. Hoffheimer in the non-profit circles in Florida, DC and beyond.

So why doesn’t someone do something about it?

By: sarasota

sarasota — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:03:44 +0000

Everything in your original post is true and are well-known facts among those who have worked with Mr. Hoffheimer in the non-profit circles in Florida, DC and beyond. You are on to something to the tune of about $5 million dollars in fraud and growing. And virtually none of this money is going to research or outreach for either PD or MD. He has total control of the money, thus, he has power in our community that allows him to proceed without question with some physicians, hospitals and allied health professionals. Thank goodness for you! You should write another blog for his PD organization. It’s more of the same. Research and interviews will be the proof in this pudding.

By: jik

jik — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:12:46 +0000

Mr. Hoffheimer posted another comment here, which I have removed, in which he once again did little more than call me names. His one factual statement, which I repeat here for the sake of rebutting it, was that he serves without any compensation, and he cited as proof his organization’s IRS Form 990s.

I removed Mr. Hoffheimer’s comment because I do not feel compelled to allow anyone to insult me repeatedly on my own blog. Mr. Hoffheimer is free to engage in a dialogue with me here about the legitimacy of his organization if he can confine his comments to facts and leave out the insults.

I have my doubts as to whether the information he has submitted to the IRS in his organization’s Form 990s is accurate (and by the way, it is standard practice for legitimate charities to make their Form 990s available on-line directly from them, something which Mr. Hoffheimer’s organization has not done). Even if his forms are accurate, there are a myriad of ways to hide inappropriate behavior within the numbers in a Form 990, so this proves nothing.

As I’ve already said, if Mr. Hoffheimer wishes to prove the legitimacy of his organization, the best way to do that would be to respond to the laundry list of issues and questions above.

Most notably, he could release a detailed breakdown of exactly how his organization has spent the money it has received in donations. Form 990 gives no real details about how money was spent.

One more thing, Mr. Hoffheimer. Remember that scene in The Shawshank Redemption where Ellis Boyd Redding claims to be “the only guilty man in Shawshank prison?” The joke is that he is the exception that proves the rule. Guilty people tend to profess their innocence the same way innocent people do, and people who are stealing money tend to forge paperwork to make it look like they aren’t. The fact that you seem to think we should believe you’re innocent merely because you say so is, honestly, laughable.