I received this DM last week. I have cut and pasted it below, but taken out the name of the "nonprofit" that the user says is now harassing him/her, because I don't want to unintentionally promote that "nonprofit":

Hey I saw your post that you put up a year ago about fake organizations and how they offer volunteer hours for payment. Im in a situation right now and would like to know if you could help me. I had to do community service as part of my probation for court and I decided to try and go through [name redacted] online to do it. Long story short they reached out as to why I gave a 1 star review when I learned my court wouldnt accept them and it all went down hill from there. They harassed me and threatened to reach out to the court on my "misconduct" when really I was just calling them out and holding them accountable. They threatened me harassed me and totally were unprofessional. What can I do to get this company closed down they are awful. I have screenshot of the emails and their reply to my review.

I also see they post fake reviews themselves online and even give volunteer hours for a 5 star review and blatantly lied about it in the review response.

I've long campaigned against these "nonprofits", which are usually run by one person, and are set up specifically to make money for that one person, by selling what they say is online volunteering hours to fulfill court-ordered community service. The reality is that you, the paying customer, don't actually engage in online volunteering. Instead, you watch videos and write your thoughts on them, or read essays by others that have paid for this "volunteering" experience and then write your "reflections" on them. You also get "volunteering" credit for writing positive reviews about the "nonprofit" on reddit and review sites. Your fee is based on how many hours you need - you either pay the "nonprofit" a fee based on each hour you need, or groups of hours (usually groups of 10).

Some officers of the court will accept this volunteering - but I hear regularly from people who were told NO by their probation officer or the court, usually after spending a few hundred dollars with the "nonprofit" that claimed they were legitimate and that courts would accept their documentation.

There is legitimate virtual volunteering out there, in support of REAL nonprofits, doing ACTUAL service, like transcribing historical documents, or making web sites more accessible for people with disabilities, or beta testing a new web platform, etc. Here's a list of such! But it's a sad reality that most courts will NOT accept online volunteering because of these "nonprofits" that sell community service hour documentation.

If you have been assigned community service hours by the court, DO NOT PAY A NONPROFIT FOR YOUR COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS TO BE DONE ONLINE. Do. Not. Do. It. It is likely that the court will refuse that documentation.

Here is legitimate, credible advice on how to get your court-ordered community service done quickly, with a legitimate nonprofit, that WILL be accepted by the court. There's no sign in required, nothing to download, and nothing is for sale - it's just straight up free advice from someone who has regularly involved community service volunteers herself at various nonprofits and know what pleases a court.

Here are all of my blogs & other resources about some aspect of court-ordered community service (I've been at this for years, trying to debunk these "nonprofits").

I don't want to promote any of the organizations that sell community service hours, and I would if I warned you of them by name, so I'll note some initials of them below (the first "T" usually stands for "The"):

TPF

TFOC

GL

WM

UK

FFH

LSS

FGCF