u/Drawjutsu wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Yup, feel sorry too that you can't scam someone like me using a non-profit ID to trick me into giving you my money. And I'll keep warning others to be alert and question how transparent an org is or whoever claims that they're non-profit.....before ~~giving~~ paying them with yo
u/michaelnovati replied ·
Yeah see the link above, in Canada, a "non-profit" is just a normal company that has a mission of social good and there are ZERO tax benefits for the company or for you. You can't even donate to them.
I actually disagree they are a scam though... I think they are just really poorly run. They had 6 people last year and 6 people this year. For the $12,000 they collected (and then refunded some), I'm not sure if that was even worth anything for them. They hired an (allegedly bad) instructor who was presumably paid, they have a website, they have TWO companies (a data science company that runs under the same name) and they spent hours commenting on Reddit and Instagram to promote the business.
One of the founders works at Amazon (or worked, not sure after layoffs if still does) and presumably wouldn't put this much effort to scam people out of a few thousand dollars.
I think incompetently run is more appropriate, in that the business is not run by people competent in how to run a business.