When the Finish Line Is a Dead End: How Some Race Organizers Exploit Charity Promises to Boost Registration
The path to recourse is real, but requires persistence
The flier is irresistible, almost by design. A 5K run through the fall foliage. A finisher’s medal. A T-shirt. And, printed in cheerful letters near the bottom: “Proceeds benefit our local veterans.” For thousands of recreational runners every year, that last line is the deciding factor — the moral sweetener that transforms a $65 registration fee into something that feels generous, civic-minded, and good.
It is, for many event organizers, the perfect hook. Invoking veterans, military families, or a beloved community food bank carries the moral weight of a salute. And for a troubling subset of organizers, it is nothing more than a lie — a calculated appeal to patriotism and community loyalty, designed to drive registrations, then quietly abandoned once the race ends and the crowds go home.
Across the country, a pattern has emerged in the amateur road-race industry: event organizers advertising that a portion — sometimes all — of their registration revenue will flow to a named charity, then pocketing the money once the medals have been handed out and the timing mats rolled up. The practice is not new. But consumer advocates and state attorneys general say it is underreported, underpoliced, and deeply corrosive to the culture of charitable athletics that organizations like the Boston Marathon have spent decades building.
Veterans’ causes have proven particularly fertile ground for this kind of exploitation. Veterans and their loved ones must remain vigilant because these deceitful schemes not only drain financial resources and divert funds away from legitimate organizations that provide genuine support to those in need, but can also lead to personal financial loss and a loss of trust in charitable organizations. In the context of charity road races, that exploitation follows a familiar script: a heartstring-tugging cause printed on the race website, a logo borrowed from a genuine nonprofit, and a registration button that costs the participant nothing more than good faith.
“There is something distinctly repulsive about fraudsters who scheme to take advantage of Hoosiers’ good-hearted generosity,” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a statement issued by his office. “Everyone should endeavor to help less fortunate neighbors and give to worthy causes. As we do that, though, we should take steps to ensure we’re not padding swindlers’ pockets rather than truly helping the needy.”
The Lure of the Veterans Bib
Of all charitable causes invoked to sell race registrations, veterans’ organizations are among the most powerful — and the most abused. The FTC has noted that “Americans are grateful for the sacrifices made by those who serve in the U.S. armed forces” and that “some con artists prey on that gratitude, using lies and deception to line their own pockets. In the process, they harm not only well-meaning donors, but also the many legitimate charities that actually do great work on behalf of veterans and servicemembers.”
The damage compounds quickly. American veterans and military personnel lost over $414 million to fraud in 2022 — a 55% increase over the year before. While most of those losses involve direct solicitation schemes, the charity race format creates a uniquely insidious variation: participants hand over their money believing they are both enjoying an athletic event and supporting their community’s heroes. Both promises, in the fraudulent cases, are kept only halfway at best.
Scam artists understand that many people show their appreciation for veterans and military families by donating to organizations that support them. An organization may not be authentic just because it uses words like “veterans” or “military families” in its name or has reputable-looking seals or logos on its materials. In the race context, that warning translates directly: a 5K with a camo-themed banner and a name invoking service members may have no meaningful relationship with any veterans’ organization at all.
The economics of charity racing are straightforward enough to be easily gamed. Dozens of runs claiming “all proceeds go to charity” have organizers who twist what the word “proceeds” means — defining it as the money left over after the race director and administrators have already taken out their share. That definition, elastic to the point of meaninglessness, can leave the named veterans’ group — often a small VFW post or a local military family assistance fund — with a token check or nothing at all.
Indiana: A Ground Zero for Veterans Charity Fraud
No state has produced a more instructive case study in veterans charity fraud than Indiana. In 2018, a Clark County man named James Linville was at the center of a federal indictment that laid bare just how far exploitation of the veterans’ brand can travel.
Linville incorporated the Wounded Warrior Fund in 2011 and Wounded Warrior Foundation in 2014, which presented themselves falsely as nonprofit organizations serving veterans in Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. Linville worked with three associates to defraud more than 1,000 victims and collect more than $150,000 in traceable donations over six years. The indictment alleges they told donors 100% of their contributions would go to veterans and their families. Investigators say no money went toward veterans.
The scheme mixed raffle-style events, door-to-door solicitation, and community fundraisers — exactly the kind of low-budget, neighborhood-facing events that often overlap with local charity runs and 5Ks. The group’s flyers for a “Veteran Family Assistance Program” and “Hoosier Overseas Calling Card Program” promised to provide money to the VFW Departments of Kentucky and Indiana, the Kentucky and Indiana National Guard, Camp Atterbury, and the USO. Those organizations told Secret Service investigators they never received any money from the groups. There was no calling card campaign, no food pantry, no holiday shopping or school supplies for veteran families. Instead the money allegedly went to drugs, gambling, and personal gain for the four people charged.
Linville and Johnson are alleged to have used the aliases of “Sergeant Bob Johnson” and “Paul Bradley” when making the solicitations. By using aliases, they masked their true identity and in many cases misled the donors into believing they were being solicited by a former military member, thus adding to their credibility.
“Our American veterans have dutifully served this country through many wars and deserve better than to be deprived of donations from giving donors,” U.S. Attorney Josh Minkler said in a statement. “The acts of these fraudsters have eroded the trust and good will of those who want to contribute to legitimate fundraising organizations, including those that support our veterans.”
The human cost was personal and local. Dan Cristiani of Clark County, Indiana — whose late father had been awarded two Purple Hearts — received a call from the “Wounded Warrior Fund” asking for a donation to help Indiana vets, felt it was his duty to give, and over two years donated more than $1,000. But the money never made it to veterans.
The local VFW commander put the damage in stark communal terms. Jim Dexter, commander of VFW Post 1693 in New Albany, Indiana, said fraudulent fundraising in the name of veterans makes it hard for legitimate veteran organizations like his to raise much-needed funds. For a VFW post that depends on community trust and small-dollar donations to support its members, having that trust poisoned by fraud is not a reputational abstraction — it is a direct hit to the resources that help struggling veterans pay their bills.
The National Pattern: Operation Donate with Honor
The Indiana case was not an isolated incident but part of a national epidemic that prompted the Federal Trade Commission to launch a coordinated enforcement campaign. The FTC, along with law enforcement officials and charity regulators from 70 offices in every state, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, and Puerto Rico, announced more than 100 actions in “Operation Donate with Honor,” a crackdown on fraudulent charities that conned consumers by falsely promising their donations would help veterans and servicemembers.
Among the targets was a group called Help the Vets. Help the Vets, an official-sounding veterans charity, was found to be diverting up to 95% of its $20 million in donations to covering expenses and the founder’s salary and benefits. Help the Vets took in more than $20 million with claims that it would use the money to assist veterans with grants, medical care, suicide prevention programs, and therapeutic retreats. In reality, these programs were fabricated. The money went to the organization’s founder and paid fundraisers.
Another target operated under a carousel of patriotic-sounding names. A group of related organizations including Veterans of America, Vehicles for Veterans, Saving Our Soldiers, Act of Valor, and Medal of Honor were all operated by a Utah man named Travis Deloy Peterson, who used robocalls to encourage individuals to donate their cars, boats, real estate, and timeshares, which Peterson sold at auction.
The pattern that emerges from these cases maps directly onto the charity race world: a patriotic name, an appeal to community spirit, a promise that the money will go to local heroes — and then nothing.
Small Nonprofits: The Other Frequent Target
Veterans’ causes are not the only community organizations whose names are pressed into service as promotional bait. Local food banks, animal rescues, youth sports leagues, and neighborhood assistance funds — the kinds of small nonprofits that are cornerstones of communities like those throughout the Midwest — are equally vulnerable to being used without their knowledge or meaningful benefit.
Fraudsters create legitimate-looking websites and advertise upcoming races to raise money for “charities.” Many of the websites even suggest affiliation with local, legitimate charities by including the charities’ logos under the sponsorship information. A small nonprofit — a county food pantry, a rural animal shelter, a local homeless assistance fund — is unlikely to have the staff or legal resources to police its name and logo across a roster of weekend 5K events, making it an easy mark for exploitation.
The mechanism of harm to small nonprofits differs from the harm done to large established charities. A national veterans’ organization absorbs the reputational blow from a fraud and recovers; a regional food bank that becomes associated — however unfairly — with a race that never delivered on its promises can see its community donations dry up for years.
One documented case illustrates the vulnerability of small nonprofits perfectly. In North Carolina, organizer Wayne Street promoted the Gladiator 5K as benefiting a local charity, collected fees from nearly 800 participants drawn partly by the charitable component, then canceled a companion children’s race three days before the event and never delivered on the charitable promise or refund commitments. The charity — a small organization that had agreed to lend its name in exchange for a promised donation — was left with nothing while its logo had been used to sell hundreds of race registrations.
In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Brewers discovered they were on the receiving end of the same dynamic. The Brewers and the Brewers Community Foundation filed a lawsuit alleging that the vendor responsible for managing websites and collecting registration and fundraising money for a series of charitable events — the Brewers Mini-Marathon, the 5K Famous Racing Sausage Run/Walk, and the Hitting 4 the Cycle bike race — had not turned over nearly $204,000 raised in 2017.
And in a case that drew national attention to the mud-run format specifically, Frederick Bradley Kellogg purchased a women’s mud-run franchise called LoziLu and marketed the events as raising money for a small Wisconsin-based nonprofit assisting young people facing serious illness. Participants paid between $54 and $79 to register for races that Kellogg advertised as helping those in need. In reality, Kellogg’s company had an agreement to donate just 5 percent of participants’ registration fees to the charity — and Swanson says Kellogg never gave even that. Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson filed a civil lawsuit alleging false and misleading solicitation, deceptive trade practices, and failure to register as a professional fundraiser.
The “Proceeds” Problem: A Linguistic Trap
One of the most common techniques used by bad-faith organizers is not outright lying but deliberate ambiguity. The phrase “proceeds go to charity” sounds unambiguous to a runner filling out a registration form, but it is legally elastic. Overhead — venue rental, timing chips, medals, staff salaries, marketing costs, the organizer’s own compensation — can be subtracted first, leaving “proceeds” that amount to a rounding error.
Some charities sell merchandise and claim that “100% of the proceeds” will go to charitable uses. But that does not necessarily mean 100% of the sales price you pay will be used for charity. In the context of a race, the same principle applies: a runner who pays $70 expecting the bulk of it to reach a veterans’ assistance fund has no idea, without asking specific questions, that “proceeds” might mean $3 after expenses.
Charities may be guilty of fraud when they mislead donors about the percentage of contributions that is applied to various business expenses, thereby vastly overstating the amount of the contribution that will go to the charitable cause. All charities have some administrative costs, but some have exorbitant overhead costs that result in almost none of the donation actually going to the charitable cause.
Consumer attorneys in Indiana note that this linguistic sleight of hand may still constitute a deceptive act under state law, even if no outright false statement was made.
Indiana’s Legal Framework: What the Law Says
For Hoosier runners who find themselves on the wrong end of a charity racing swindle, Indiana’s legal code offers a patchwork of remedies — civil and, in some cases, criminal — though enforcement often lags behind the scale of harm.
The most directly applicable statute is Indiana Code § 23-7-8-7, which governs the solicitation of charitable contributions. Under that section, a person who solicits charitable contributions may not “misrepresent to anyone that the contribution will be used for a charitable purpose if the person has reason to believe the contribution will not be used for a charitable purpose.” The provision is explicit: a race organizer who collects registration fees under the banner of a veterans’ fund or a local food bank — while knowing those funds will not reach that charity — is in direct violation.
The Indiana Attorney General may issue a cease and desist order to halt solicitation activities until compliance is achieved. Civil penalties, including fines of up to $500 per violation, may be imposed. Professional fundraisers involved in charitable solicitations must register separately with the Attorney General’s Office under Indiana Code 23-7-8-4, which requires a $50 fee and a $10,000 bond, ensuring fundraisers operate responsibly.
On the consumer protection side, Indiana’s Deceptive Consumer Sales Act (DCSA), codified at Indiana Code § 24-5-0.5, provides a broader avenue. The purposes and policies of the chapter are to “protect consumers from suppliers who commit deceptive and unconscionable sales acts” and to “encourage the development of fair consumer sales practices.” A race registration — the sale of a service to a person for personal or charitable purposes — would almost certainly qualify as a “consumer transaction” under the act’s definitions.
A person relying upon an uncured or incurable deceptive act may bring an action for the damages actually suffered as a consumer or five hundred dollars, whichever is greater. Courts may increase damages for a willful deceptive act in an amount not exceeding the greater of three times the actual damages, or one thousand dollars. Courts may also award reasonable attorney’s fees to the prevailing party.
Crucially, the DCSA distinguishes between remedyable conduct and outright fraud. An “incurable deceptive act” is defined as a deceptive act “done by a supplier as part of a scheme, artifice, or device with intent to defraud or mislead.” Incurable acts don’t need to go through the whole invitation-to-cure process. The DCSA assumes the business wouldn’t cure them even if it had the chance to. So consumers can go right ahead and sue.
On the criminal side, false and fraudulent advertisements are prohibited under Indiana Code § 35-43-5-3. A person who disseminates a false, misleading, or deceptive advertisement with intent to promote a purchase commits deception, which is a Class A misdemeanor. Courts may award increased damages for willful deceptive acts in an amount of three times the actual damages or one thousand dollars, whichever is greater.
Should the fraud escalate in scale, Indiana Code § 35-43-5-4 governs fraud more broadly. Penalties for fraud in Indiana depend on the crime’s severity and the specific statute. A Level 6 felony, involving lesser financial harm, carries a sentence of six months to two and a half years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. More severe offenses, such as Level 5 felonies, can result in one to six years of imprisonment. Courts may also order restitution, requiring offenders to compensate victims for their losses.
At the federal level, organizers who use electronic communications — websites, emails, social media — to solicit registrations with false charitable promises could face wire fraud charges under 18 U.S.C. § 1343, which carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison and significant fines.
What Duped Runners Can Do
For participants who registered for a race believing their entry fee would benefit a veterans’ group, a local food bank, or any other named cause — and who later discovered it did not — the path to recourse is real, but requires persistence.
File a complaint with the Indiana Attorney General. The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division mediates and investigates consumer complaints against businesses and other organizations and takes legal action on behalf of the state against individuals and companies that violate Indiana’s Deceptive Consumer Sales Act. Consumers can report charity scams at indianaconsumer.com.
Dispute the charge with your credit card company. Under the federal Fair Credit Billing Act, cardholders can dispute fraudulent charges within 60 days. This is often the fastest route to a refund and was the primary recourse for many participants in fraudulent mud-run events who recovered their registration fees.
Send a written notice and demand to cure. Under the DCSA, consumers must generally notify the business in writing of the deceptive act and the damages suffered before filing suit — unless the conduct is incurable. Once the notice is given and the business fails to fix the problem, there is no limitation on the ability to sue. For outright fraud — a scheme to cheat people — the notice requirement is bypassed entirely.
Pursue a class action. Any person entitled to bring an action under the DCSA may also bring a class action on behalf of any class of persons similarly damaged by the same deceptive act. The DCSA’s attorney fee-shifting provision — which requires the losing business to pay the winner’s legal fees — means that even when individual damages are small, an attorney has a financial incentive to take the case if the class is large enough.
Contact the named charity directly. In virtually every documented case of charity-race fraud, the named organization was itself a victim — unaware that its name and logo had been used without meaningful financial benefit. Small nonprofits and VFW posts can and do pursue independent legal action, and their involvement can significantly bolster regulatory complaints.
Report to federal agencies. The FTC planned Operation Donate with Honor with the National Association of State Charity Officials (NASCO), and both agencies continue to receive and act on complaints involving fraudulent veterans’ and community charity solicitations. Reports can be filed at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
Prevention: How to Vet a Charity Race
Consumer protection advocates recommend several steps before runners hand over a registration fee to any event claiming a charitable purpose.
Verify the charity is real and registered. Under Indiana law, a professional solicitor who solicits contributions for, or on behalf of, a charity must register with the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division and provide information about its solicitation campaigns on behalf of charities. The information provided must include a copy of the solicitor’s contract with the charity, which must contain the percentage of gross contributions or revenue that the charity will receive.
Contact the charity directly — not through a link on the race website — to confirm its involvement and its understanding of what percentage of proceeds it expects to receive. For veterans’ organizations in particular, verify nonprofit status using the IRS’s Tax-Exempt Organization Search tool to confirm the organization is a registered 501(c)(3), and validate how donations are being spent by obtaining written information, including annual reports, about any charity before donating.
Search the race name alongside words like “scam,” “canceled,” or “complaint.” Pay by credit card. And be especially skeptical of newly formed events without a track record, or of any race that uses vague language like “a portion of proceeds” without specifying the actual percentage or naming a verifiable charity contact.
The Indiana Attorney General advises Hoosiers to research any charity to which one is considering donating, and to go online to indianaconsumer.com to report charity scams to the Consumer Protection Division of the Office of the Indiana Attorney General.
A Trust That Takes Years to Build, Seconds to Shatter
The damage done by fraudulent charity races extends well beyond the runners who never see their fees reach their intended destination. Disillusionment and suspicion caused by fraudulent charitable solicitation has the additional effect of tainting the fund-raising appeals of legitimate charities, which suffer by association with those who defraud donors.
For the VFW post whose name appeared on a race banner without its meaningful knowledge, the harm is both financial and reputational. For the local food bank whose logo was borrowed to sell 500 race registrations — then used to explain why donors needn’t write a separate check — the harm is compounded by the difficulty of proving a negative: demonstrating to a wary community that the money meant for them never arrived.
The running community has largely built its charitable culture on trust. Entry fees paid at the race office. Pledges collected for causes that mean something. Medals that carry the weight of something larger than personal achievement. The organizers described in this article traded on that trust — and in doing so, did harm not just to the charities whose names they borrowed, but to the culture of giving that makes charitable athletics worth running for.
The finish line of a charity race is supposed to mean something. For the organizers described in these pages, it was merely a starting gun for a different kind of run.
Consumers who believe they have been deceived by a charitable race event in Indiana can file a complaint with the Indiana Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division at indianaconsumer.com or by calling 1-800-382-5516. Complaints may also be filed with the Federal Trade Commission at reportfraud.ftc.gov. Veterans who suspect they have experienced fraud can find resources to file a report at vsafe.gov or by calling 833-38V-SAFE.