🚨CBN Update: Charity Spam Text/Email Campaigns
Within minutes of us posting, we received an incredible amount of information from the CBN Community. We went to work, and here is what we got.
How this happens: Whenever you donate to a shul or yeshiva, or purchase a raffle ticket online, your phone number is captured in that organization’s system. Over time, this has created a large pool of contact information sitting with various charities. Recently, a small number of young men have capitalized on this by running text and email marketing campaigns using these numbers. It appears some administrators, not fully understanding the implications, granted these individuals backend access, allowing them to extract this data. Many organizations have been reluctant to “stop the practice”, since these text campaigns were performing well. (MONSTER CHUTZPAH)
Additionally we got a lot denials from some of the platforms that host these charity campaigns, but we let them know what’s up, and that they had better put an end to it right now. We can confirm that the “Charidy” platform and the “Rayze It” platform do not share your info.💪
The legal issue: Beyond any halachic concerns about sharing private information without consent, THE LAW IS CLEAR: recipients must be able to unsubscribe at any time, and senders must honor that request immediately.
What we found: Most senders comply, if a bit slowly — annoying, but not a major violation. However, one of the largest operators was not removing people who had unsubscribed🤬. In multiple documented cases, someone unsubscribed and then received the same message minutes later from a different number (as shown above). This operator maintained dozens of backup numbers specifically to route around unsubscribe requests.
Resolution: Today, this individual was contacted directly and given a clear, firm warning that he must comply fully with the law. He has committed that going forward, anyone who unsubscribes will be permanently removed from his system.
Going forward: If you unsubscribe from a list and continue to receive the same or similar messages, please send us a screenshot and we will handle it directly.
To the charity organizations and fundraising platforms: This is a serious breach of donor trust, and it needs to be addressed. Until I have assurance that my information will be kept secure and in-house, I personally will be pausing donations through online platforms (besides for the two I listed above).
This needs to stop, and we’re committed to making sure it does. The next time we have to post about this, someone may have to get named and their business may be damaged by it. So please make sure you do the right thing.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
#CBNOUT
