The Tampa Bay Times and the Center for Investigative Reporting identified the 50 worst charities in the US (see table below). These are organizations that purport to help the needy but devote pennies on the dollar to worth causes.  The Pulitzer Prize worthy series is published in the Tampa Bay Times: America’s Worst Charities.

Here’s an eye-opening and infuriating preview:

The worst charity in America operates from a metal warehouse behind a gas station in Holiday.

Every year, Kids Wish Network raises millions of dollars in donations in the name of dying children and their families.

Every year, it spends less than 3 cents on the dollar helping kids.

Most of the rest gets diverted to enrich the charity’s operators and the for-profit companies Kids Wish hires to drum up donations.

In the past decade alone, Kids Wish has channeled nearly $110 million donated for sick children to its corporate solicitors. An additional $4.8 million has gone to pay the charity’s founder and his own consulting firms.

The following tips can help you make an informed decision when the phone rings from a charity:

Key questions to ask the caller:

• What is the full name of the charity?
• Do you work for a paid fundraiser?
• How much of my donation actually goes to charity?
• Will any local programs directly benefit? If so, how?
• What is the website address of the charity?

Key facts to know:

• The best charities spend no more than 35 cents of every dollar raised on fundraising costs
• America’s worst charities spend more than 80 cent of every dollar on fundraising
• Charities that use telemarketing firms and fundraisers are far more likely to receive only a fraction of the money raised

The 50 Worst, Ranked by Money Blown on Soliciting Costs

Source: Tampa Bay Times

An article published by American Banker alerted us to a questionable refi pitch that Bank of America is currently making in direct mail advertising:

“See if refinancing could save you an estimated $4,344 in annual payment savings,” reads the pitch in boldface on a direct mail advertisement sent to a New Jersey borrower last month.

The ad compared the borrower’s current mortgage payment on a 20-year fixed-rate loan with an interest rate of 4% to B of A’s “new loan program” that offers a 30-year fixed-rate at 3.75%. B of A showed a breakdown in which the borrower would be paying two points on the new loan, adding an estimated $8,977 in fees and closing costs. That would increase the overall interest rate to 4.1%, excluding taxes and insurance.

In short, B of A’s pitch, with its focus exclusively on lowering the borrower’s monthly payment, implied that the deal was in the consumer’s best interest, even though the borrower would end up paying a higher interest rate and would be adding 10 more years to the overall life of the loan.

Such tactics are not in a borrower’s best interest and fly in the face of efforts by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to make consumer products more transparent, simpler and easier to understand, consumer advocates added.

Andrew Pizor, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, examined B of A’s letter and calculated that the new refinance offer would add $37,188 more in interest over the life of the loan compared to the borrower’s current mortgage.

“This ad clearly implies that this refinancing is right for this borrower,” says Pizor. “I think the pitch is kind of deceptive because it boldly mentions ‘save’ and ‘savings,’ repeatedly, and of course it refers only to the higher interest rate and overall loan amount in the footnotes. Marketers know those details will be overlooked.”

The list of frequently asked questions also gives borrowers the impression “that B of A is looking out for the borrower’s best interest,” Pizor says. “If I was representing this borrower, I’d argue that Bank of America has assumed a fiduciary duty to the borrower by making this promise. But I’m sure the bank wouldn’t agree.”

Bottom line: consumer advocates and banking industry officials appear to differ over whether ads such as B of A’s rise to the level of making false or misleading claims.

Bank of America Chief Executive Brian Moynihan is looking to squeeze Merrill Lynch’s “Thundering Herd” for more revenue and profit through cross-selling.

In the banking business when you try to sell customers additional products it’s called “cross selling”.  Banks like BB&T and Wells Fargo have strong cross-selling reputations.  For example, Wells Fargo says it sells an average of 6 products to its retail-banking customers.

Things get messy when this cross selling breaches the boundary between bankers and brokers.  For example, Merrill Lynch brokers’ yearly bonus partially depends on how much money brokerage clients have in checking and savings accounts at parent Bank of America.

Merrill Lynch brokers and managers complain that this compensation structure essentially puts Bank of America’s own interests ahead of clients since Merrill employees have a disincentive to advise customers to withdraw money from bank accounts.  Other Merrill brokers say customer service at BofA isn’t reliable enough for them to feel good about encouraging clients to do business there.

Source: Merrill Staff Sees Red Over BofA Cross Selling (Wall Street Journal)

Gold prices have fallen approximately 10% over the past week.  Prices tumbled 9% on Monday, the biggest one-day loss in 30 years.

Barry Ritholtz of Fusion IQ recently shared his 12 commandments of gold bulls which he says are completely bogus.

Here are his twelve (misguided) gold bug commandments in his own words:

1. Gold is a Currency: This is rule number 1. It is not a decorative or industrial metal, it is a permanent store of value, as dictated by Greeks in Lydia around 700 B.C. And, it shall be ever thus.

2. The price of gold cannot fall, it can only be manipulated lower: When gold’s price falls, it is an unnatural act. It can only occur as the result of an international cabal of Central Bankers and politicians. Its a conspiracy, and we know who the guilty parties are.

3. If the price of gold is rising, it is doing so despite enormous and desperate efforts by manipulators to prevent the rise: This is the corollary to the prior Rule of Gold manipulation. Gold runs up despite the overwhelming opposition to it.

4. The world MUST return to the Gold Standard one day: It is inevitable that we will return to a Gold Standard. We all know this to be true. When we compare the size of the money supply to past amounts when there was a Gold Standard, we can derive prices of Gold in the $7,000, $10,000 even $15,000. Hence, we know its cheap even at $2,000.

5. Central Bankers are printing money relentlessly, and this can only drive Gold prices higher: NOTE: You must ignore, for the moment, that Gold has not gone higher for the past 2 years as Central Banks around the world have ramped up QE. This only means that ultimately, Gold will go much much higher.

6. Gold works whether the economy is good or bad: When we have a red hot economy, Gold is your hedge against inflation. When we have a bad economy, Gold is a safe harbor against collapse. It is a one way trade that never fails!

7. Gold will survive after the world economy crumbles: Gold is the ultimate currency, as it has a value that will survive even after the whole world tumbles around you. Get yourself some gold coins and a Glock and you will be just fine when the whole world goes to shit. We welcome the era envisioned in the movie Mad Max.

8. Never admit that Gold is essentially a sucker’s bet: Never discuss how in the last century, gold has run up only be to trounced in repeated massive sell offs (always blame rule #2 for this). Do not discuss how this has happened in 1915-20, 1941, 1947, 1951-66, 1974-76 1981, 1983-85, 1987-2000 and 2008.

9. Gold is a rejection of government, and their control of fiat money and finance: There are no printing presses that produce gold, it is finite, natural and God created. How much we scrape out of the ground each year is limited, and the only variable to the old equation. (Just ignore Man’s natural tendency to organize into to City-States over the past 12,000 years).

10. All Gold discussions must contain ominous macro forecasts: Your description of why Gold is going higher must consist of spurious correlations, unprovable predictions, and a guarded expectation of bad things in the future. Avoid empirical data at all costs.

11. Gold is always rallying in one currency or another: Sure, it may be down 30% in Dollars, the reserve currency it is priced in, but you can always find a currency falling faster than it does and claim you own it in that denomination. Last week, it was up in Japanese Yen. This week, it is up in Zimbabwe dollars.

12. China & India know the value of Gold; the Western world does not: The massive buying of gold by consumers in Chindia reflects the culture, intelligence and investing savvy of the people in these countries. The West doesn’t get it, and it is their loss.

Bonus rule: Never admit Gold might be falling because it trades on human emotions and psychology and has no intrinsic value whatsoever.

A New York Times article titled “The Least-Trusted Banks in America” cites a Forrester Research study that found customers of the biggest banks in the US don’t believe their financial institution does what’s best for them, but instead does what’s best for their bottom line.

Source: The Financial Brand