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Owner Of "Charitable" Clothing Bins Made $10 Million Selling Donated Clothes
By
Lauren Evans
Published Oct 30, 2015
Modified Aug 1, 2017
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By
Lauren Evans
Published Oct 30, 2015
Modified Aug 1, 2017
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The Attorney General has reached a $750,000 settlement with two organizations for profiting off of clothing donated to bins intended to appear as though they were run by a charity.
The Yonkers-based Thrift Land is a for-profit company that operates around 1,100 clothing bins throughout the New York area, though the AG determined it'd been masquerading as a charitable organization by painting the names of two non-profits—Big Brothers Big Sisters of Rockland County and I Love Our Youth—on the sides of its bins. The trouble was that neither organization was benefitting from the clothing collected, save for a small monthly fee paid by the company in exchange for use of their names.
Thrift Land owner Carl Vella made more than $10 million in 2013 and 2014 by selling the donated clothes to buyers in Mexico, Jordan and elsewhere.
“Duping members of the public into thinking that they are making a charitable donation, when in fact they are enriching a for-profit corporation, is both deceptive and illegal,” Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement. “When a for-profit company masquerades as a charity, my office will hold it and its owners accountable.”
The settlement will also require Thrift Land to rebrand its bins in a less misleading manner, as well attach a disclosure label stating that none of the clothing collected will benefit charity. Thrift Land has also paid $50,000 in penalties, as well as $650,000 to the New York Community Trust and Westchester Community Foundation to fulfill the "charitable intent" of the clothing donated.
I Love Our Youth is required to pay $50,000, and its chairman agreed to dissolve the organization. The CEO and president of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Rockland County will be forced to undergo only an ethics training class.
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Lauren Evans
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