So there is this go fund me at http://www.gofundme.com/savethef40 the description says "We are the F40PH preservation society. Our goal is to save one of these locomotives and preserve it as a piece of history. But first let me tell you a bit about the F40ph. The F40ph locomotive ..." The problem is this is NOT the F40PH Preservation Society. Have any of you ever had to deal with stuff like this? I have already contacted Go Fund Me but am wondering what elce to do.

Leave a message/comment on the page that this is NOT the genuine F40 people. It could get deleted at some point but it might help an unwitting person from making a donation to 'who knows what'. Then follow the process on gofundme.

Your society will have to determine what to do, if anything, about the individual who did this. I would suggest trying to constructively redirect his energy, but if they have a track record with you already, that might not be the best course of action.

Almost certainly this guy (or a Joe Job):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cameroncool2000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... oncool2000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cameroncool2000
Note a high percentage of his contribs result in minor warnings - suggests insensibilities of youth. Note 2000 in username, could be birth year, making him 14-15. Not interested in doxing a kid, so I'll stop there, but I gather the breadcrumbs would lead to an upper-middle-class family, which would tend to remove fraud from the motive list.

Certainly knows how to use social media. Could teach some of us things I'm sure, unfortunately not discretion, teamwork or professionalism. Yet.

OK, this is the part where all the trolling naysayers rip me a new one for discouraging the guy.

Cross-reference this with posts about 'how to preserve an F40' on the Trains Magazine forums several years ago, with very similar 'lack of sophistication'. (IIRC the organization was in Massachusetts somewhere but the treasurer was in Pennsylvania, because that's where the only guy with the bank account was...) Is that the genesis of the 'official' F40 Preservation Society?

The present gofundme guy doesn't seem to have learned much from the advice we all gave the other guys...

The "original" F40PH Preservation Society website news page indicates the group "intends" to apply for IRS 501c3 status. The news item is dated March 13, 2011, more than four years ago. At the time of this posting there were no more recent news postings, and no indication of whether they actually completed their application or were approved.

Is the original F40PH Preservation Society an IRS approved 501c3 organization yet?

PC

"Is the original F40PH Preservation Society an IRS approved 501c3 organization yet?"

The IRS' Exempt Organization check page (the online version of Publication 78) shows no exemption granted any association with f40 or f40ph in its name; nor were any automatically revoked for failure to file a 990, from 6/1/2011 to 07/17/2015
.

The short answer: almost certainly not.

Thanks for that research, Superheater.......

So there are now appear to be TWO F40PH Preservation Societies, NEITHER of which has achieved IRS 501c3 status, that are competing for donations.......

Anybody see anything that could possibly go wrong with that?

PC

They all appear to be the same person,,https://www.facebook.com/f40phsoc,and afew other sites link or have same emails

To anser some questions yes the F40PH Preservation Society .inc is a real not for profit corpration, no we are not 501c(3) yet. We may soon though I have made some money selling stuff online. I do have my own bank acount and a car and a job the thing is the F40PH preservation Society funds woulden't be kosher for me to have them in my personal account. In the President of such orginazation can't have controll of the acounts anyway so that is why it is that way. And yes that trains post was the start of the Society just don't use the word "genesis" around F40 fans.

/facepalm so much for "we are legion".... Folks, we're dealing with two completely separate entities here:
1) brother RCD, whose name is known, whose organizaton is incorporated, has a board, and notably, a treasurer in Pennsylvania.
2) a 14 year old rock god, whose name and town are known, definitely not RCD's, and lied to GoFundMe about his age, an inauspicious start to a business.

We know RCD is not 14 because he's been active for a long time. Not that it would matter, kids have done amazing things in this very field.

And one more damn thing. Dont tell me YOU didn't start wet behind the ears. We were all RCD once. We were all even cameroncool2000... Some of us are...still...there...


A trolling naysayer would grab that as a talking point.

Whereas, an actual accountant knows the IRS takes about a year to from submission to issue a determination letter, and some months after that to update that website you checked. And some time after that to propagate to Guidestar and other private-sector nonprofit repositories. RCD's group was fundraising for their 501c3 app less than a year ago on this very forum, which means it would be impossible for them to be up on the IRS website. So that is not an indication of a problem, or at least not a new one.

Although personally, my money is on RCD's group STILL not having sent in their 501c3, because they are stuck at the complication of not having filed within 27 months of incorporation, and are too proud to huck out corporation 1, and just incorporate corporation 2 to restart the clock. Trump creates 2 or 3 new corporations evey day before breakfast. I'm forming one for the solitary purpose of evading $150/year in foreign registered-agent fees. After breakfast, I'm not Trump.

Heck, when I was 15 I advertised in the Trains Magazine classifieds for 'backers' to develop 225-mph passenger rail equipment. You'll not hear me bashing either idealism or precociousness ... nor, ahem, unusual methods of promotion.



Seems to me there was a fellow in preservation by the name of Jensen who started with little more than that. He achieved quite a bit, in an operating context arguably not too different from what applies to surviving F40s today. My principal concern is that it's now several years down the road and I don't see a potential 'safe home' for the donated F40, let alone a volunteer team of people as an 'advisory board' -- and there are people here at RyPN who would cheerfully assist in many ways; have, in fact, done so repeatedly.



I would no more use the g-word here than I would steer the discussion to furries. But that brings up a potentially interesting point for no few people here. At one time a decade or less ago, the F40PH had acquired near-legendary status in a considerable subset of the Internet community, a sort of Chuck Norris of the rails, as it were. It seems strange to me that neither the RCD or cameroncook2000 efforts have succeeded in tapping into that meme, or gone on 4chan et al. to publicize the preservation effort or even get it to 'go viral'. I doubt there are many 'serious preservationists' who were involved in the meme, but there is surely a way to leverage the name recognition into enough support for a F40 preservation society.

The concern I have at this point is that without that kind of recognition, there may not be enough support for one effort. Let alone two. Neither one displaying any particular organized feasibility plan, let alone a timetable of actions or the satisfaction of the necessary preconditions to secure a locomotive donation ... yet.

Kelly Lynch in particular might be a resource who can look into the decidedly unusual situation with F40PH name recognition and perhaps derive some options for marketing or development strategy...

Nothing like a double post on a hot afternoon. Fixed that.

And that F40PH super-locomotive subset unfortunately missed out on the point that it is a machine designed by people, and some of those people were still around up until the last few years to interview and learn from. Too bad, it was another opportunity to preserve some history that has now largely passed.

PC

"Whereas, an actual accountant knows the IRS takes about a year to from submission to issue a determination letter, and some months after that to update that website you checked. "

I am an actual accountant, so I know that submitted but unapproved paperwork is worthless.

Also the database, depending on what you are seeking was updated only as long ago as 06/08/2015. The most recent inquiry was updated 07/13/2015.

http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Prof ... lect-Check

Select check is no longer updated quarterly.

http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Prof ... Reinstated

I told you before about practicing without a license, this is why.

It took us $400 and 10 days to get 501c3 approval granted, so F40 society you need to bite the bullet and do it its not difficult and can all be done online.

Mike Pannell
High Plains Railroad Preservation Association