AvaazReviews of avaaz.org

I naively sent money (recent direct email about a specific issue) before checking the organisations accounts which you can find on the organisational webpages. Income, grants and renumeration packages don't add up for me. I won’t be donating again. There are a lot of other organisations that either campaign and/or raise money for specific causes (I will continue to donate to) that ensure more money donated goes to causes highlighted. This isn’t one of them “buyer (or donator) beware” – just because an organisation says it is doing “good” doesn’t mean it isn’t also ensuring the directors (or other key stakeholders and power wielders) are well renumerated (look at the amount of money being paid to a few key individuals…. ). Maybe they read Nir Eyal's book about marketing - they seem very good at it.

I was tricked into signing a petition on this site, it is a Scam and should be ignored and blocked!!! NEVER EVER send them money!!! I saw that the numbers signing didn't go up, ever though they claimed 1.8M had signed their petition!!! DON'T give them your email, or any other personal details!!!

I have changed my email address since signing up to subscribe to the AVAZZ platform and I have not been able to contact them to cancel my subscription as you have to enter the original email and password that you signed up with and I have no way of receiving or sending messages to that old account. I have contacted my bank and they have now stopped the payments going out but have warned me that they may try to take them again!

Avaaz uses emotive images, picking up on the latest global crisis, to campaign and raise money. However, although 'Avaaz has donated tens of millions of dollars to other organisations, because we saw them as better placed than us to have impact on a particular issue', supporters have to take on trust that it was well spent. The Avaaz website does not acknowledge or honour those organisations by name, or indicate why they are trustworthy and effective. The assurance that 'every last cent' will go to those suffering is surely absurd, thus borderline dishonest. You can plough through Avaaz's dry, legally required accounts, but there is fairly minimal detail about grants. It would not be costly to produce an easily visible user-friendly presentation of annual accounts, with a list of all grantee organisations by name, to increase transparency. Without full transparency the reputation of humanitarian work generally is damaged. Avaaz is excellent at self-promotion, and at denigrating other organisations for being cumbersome and inefficient. But I tried twice to contact them re grant accountability and received no reply. Only when I put a negative review on Trustpilot did I get a response. I'd like to think they're as great as the line-up of big names complimenting them makes out, but for me the lack of a cool, easily readable summary of accounts, with acknowledgement of grant partners by name, and positive celebration of partnership working, not just 'our community', leaves a bad taste.

I ordered an awesome Christmas lawn ornament for my sister November 2, which arrived December 6, containing a Halloween Lawn Ornament instead. Unfortunately, she had thrown out the receipt along with the packing materials. The company refuses to send the correct item without the receipt and has accused me of lying claiming Halloween stock ran out at the end of October. Oh well, at least she received something for my efforts and will enjoy her Christmas present next October. Merry Christmas and Happy Halloween!

Used to sign petitions in "secure" avaaz, but my email box is now full of SPAM every day, starting from sexual email to all kinds of phishing and scams. I never gave permition for my email adress to be distributed. "Secure" Avaaz sells email adresses, and unsolicited emails from Meetic even come with a tittle: «through avaaz», which confirms where all the SPAM came from.

They are scammers

I also have contacted Avaaz 3 times to cancel my donation. They do not reply. I have to cancel my credit card to cancel their account.