Judge rules K4K Does False Advertising
By David Bolling
Kars4Kids, the New Jersey-based charity that has infected national airwaves for 20 years with a promotional jingle once described by comedian and social analyst John Oliver as “the corona virus of TV commercials,” has been banned from advertising in California by an Orange County Superior Court Judge.
Judge Gassia Apkarian ruled on May 8 that Kars4Kids could no longer broadcast the annoying, ear-worm TV and radio ads in California because they violated the state’s laws against false advertising and unfair competition.
The false advertising charge relates to the fact that beneficiaries of Kars4Kids donation revenues – which in recent years total an annual estimated $85 million – are overwhelmingly Jewish kids, teens and even adults associated with Oorah, a Lakewood, New Jersey-based orthodox Jewish organization. Oorah, the judge found, conducts summer camps in New York, funds trips to Israel for teens and adults, supports an adult matchmaking service, and spends 30 percent of its revenues on in-house advertising, another six percent on administrative costs, and spent $16.5 million on a building in Israel.
The only benefits Kars4Kids has bestowed on California kids, the judge determined, was a promotional backpack giveaway, featuring Kars4Kids-branded packs. Judge Apkarian ruled that any future Kars4Kids advertising in California would have to contain an “express, audible disclosure of its religious affiliation and the geographic location of its primary beneficiaries, and the age of the beneficiaries, specifying whether they aim for children or families or both.”
The Orange County case was filed by a Kars4Kids donor who gave the organization his used Volvo in 2021, only to learn from a neighbor that his donation would fund programs for Jewish kids in the Northeast, not in California. The revelation, he said, made him feel “taken advantage of.”
The Orange County case was not the first judgment won against Kars4Kids. In 2009, Kars4Kids paid settlements in Oregon and Pennsylvania after those states charged the charity with misleading donors. And, as reported in these pages in 2024, Minnesota’s 2017 Attorney General revealed that, while Kars4Kids raised $3 million in that state between 2012 and 2014, only $12,000 was spent on Minnesota kids.
This pattern of misleading advertising has not escaped the watchful eye of CharityWatch, the nation’s independent charity watchdog, which has devoted considerable online space to harsh criticism of the K4K messaging. On its charitywatch.org site, the organization renders critical judgment.
“In CharityWatch’s view,” the nonprofit states, “the Kars4Kids ads deceive potential donors by failing to inform them that donated cars will benefit a Jewish organization and kids of Jewish faith. Furthermore, the youth programs Kars4Kids supports, promote an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle, which CharityWatch believes compounds the deception perpetrated by the Kars4Kids ads. . . . Oorah, which means ‘awaken’ in Hebrew, ‘specializes in outreach to non-observant Jews, operating summer camps and other programs that seek to make non-Orthodox Jews more observant,’ according to an October 2016 article in the Forward, which covers news for a Jewish-American audience.”
Adds CharityWatch, “While supporting Orthodox Jewish organizations is a worthy endeavor for those donors who are intending to do so, many donors of other faiths may not be pleased to learn that the car they donated to Kars4Kids may have funded religious teachings that are in conflict with their own faith or personal beliefs. Orthodox Jews, who follow the traditional interpretations of Jewish law with strict observance of Jewish ritual, make up only about 10 percent of Jewish adults in the U.S. . . . CharityWatch thinks it is highly unlikely that Kars4Kids would be enjoying the same level of success as it has, averaging over $30 million a year in donated car proceeds from 2010-2015, if its ads disclosed that donated cars are used to fund Orthodox outreach programs for children of Jewish faith.”
Judge Apkarian gave Kars4Kids 30 days to cease its California advertising. Meanwhile, Kars4Kids vowed it would challenge the decision, stating in a release, “We believe this decision is deeply flawed, ignores the facts and misapplies the law. It’s well known that we are a Jewish organization and our website makes it abundantly clear.”
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