VENTURA, California – District Attorney Gregory D. Totten announced today that the Ventura County District Attorney’s Consumer and Environmental Protection Unit and the California Attorney General's Office have jointly filed a civil law enforcement action against Cars 4 Causes, a Ventura-based vehicle donation organization. Cars 4 Causes attracts prospective donors by promising to donate the majority of a donated vehicle’s sales proceeds to the donor’s specified charity.

The complaint alleges that Cars 4 Causes violated California’s false advertising and unfair competition laws by overstating the proportion of proceeds to be forwarded to donors’ specified charities, and that Cars 4 Causes often failed to forward any proceeds to charity at all, instead spending the proceeds on its own advertising campaigns, operating expenses and salaries. Cars 4 Causes’ last tax return reported that, despite raising over $5 million in donated vehicles, less than 10 percent of the proceeds were paid to any charity. In addition, Cars 4 Causes failed to pay $2 million of sale proceeds to thousands of charitable organizations around the country, including over $600,000 that should have been given to charities serving the sick and providing medical research; $250,000 to children’s and education charities; and $200,000 to charities serving the poor.

The Attorney General and the District Attorney are requesting that the court order Cars 4 Causes to cease making misrepresentations, and to pay all moneys owed to the donors’ specified charities.