âA fraudulent charityâ does not sound to me much like âa charity that knowingly used a mildly overoptimistic figure for the benefits of one of its programs even after admitting under pressure it was wrongâ. Rather, I think the rhetorical force of the phrase comes mostly from the fact that to any normal English speaker it conjures up the image of a charity that is a scam in the sense that it is taking money, not doing charitable work with it, and instead just putting it into the CEOâs (or whoeverâs) personal bank account. My feeling on this isnât really effected by whether the first thing meets the legal definition of fraud, probably it does. My guess is that many charities that almost no one would describe as âfraudulent organizationsâ have done something like this or equivalently bad at some point in their histories, probably including some pretty effective ones.
Not that I think that means Singeria have done nothing wrong. If they agree the figure is clearly overoptimistic they should change it. Not doing so is deceptive, and probably it is illegal. But I find it a bit irritating that you are using what seems to me to be somewhat deceptive rhetoric whilst attacking them for being deceptive.
Thereâs also a big difference between whatâs technically illegal and what a court would realistically punish a person or an organization for doing, since the courts rely on discernment or, more fittingly, judgment. The latter is much more relevant for deciding whether you should use the word âfraudâ in the title of a post about a charity.
âA fraudulent charityâ does not sound to me much like âa charity that knowingly used a mildly overoptimistic figure for the benefits of one of its programs even after admitting under pressure it was wrongâ. Rather, I think the rhetorical force of the phrase comes mostly from the fact that to any normal English speaker it conjures up the image of a charity that is a scam in the sense that it is taking money, not doing charitable work with it, and instead just putting it into the CEOâs (or whoeverâs) personal bank account. My feeling on this isnât really effected by whether the first thing meets the legal definition of fraud, probably it does. My guess is that many charities that almost no one would describe as âfraudulent organizationsâ have done something like this or equivalently bad at some point in their histories, probably including some pretty effective ones.
Not that I think that means Singeria have done nothing wrong. If they agree the figure is clearly overoptimistic they should change it. Not doing so is deceptive, and probably it is illegal. But I find it a bit irritating that you are using what seems to me to be somewhat deceptive rhetoric whilst attacking them for being deceptive.
Thereâs also a big difference between whatâs technically illegal and what a court would realistically punish a person or an organization for doing, since the courts rely on discernment or, more fittingly, judgment. The latter is much more relevant for deciding whether you should use the word âfraudâ in the title of a post about a charity.