TLDR:

Their website has no information on what their program is or how it works. The only thing on their website that they talk about is donations. It has absolutely nothing on what they actually do.

They don't return phone calls, voicemails, or emails.

Their Twitter has nothing about the program or cause.

Google has nothing on their organization or what it's about

Cant find success stories or mentions about this program from real people anywhere on the Internet

The only qualifying factor for getting into the program is: "what's your favorite MRE?"

And they don't even have a curriculum for the program.

In a Reddit thread, they refuse to answer any of our questions, and they claim that it's not their fault that we couldn't find any information on their organization and that we should've listened to the podcast that talks about their cause. Which they advertise nowhere on their website that they even have podcasts. He talks about his one success story that they paraded around Silicon Valley and that's it.

This is a scam of an organization stealing money that is meant for veterans.

https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/5mgect/has_anyone_had_any_experience_with_vetswhocodeio/?st=IYDBQICD&sh=5d5f1d90

Update 1: how funny, I just "coincidentally" I received an email back just now after that conversation in the posted thread stating: "Sorry to say you are not qualified for our program. Have a great day!"

Update 2: just got a call from the CEO pissed about the "allegations" and started yelling at me before I hung up.

Update 3: he then took my personal information and posted it on reddit, which the mods removed.

Update 4: his twitter is hilarious. He even goes as far as saying: "and thinking about how entitled this white male veteran was"

So now he wants to make it a race thing.

He is also calling me a coward for hanging up on him while he screamed at me on the phone.

Oh and he might sue me. Lol

Update 5: u/caosborne shared his experience with them. Here it is.

So OP I have had a somewhat dealing with this turd. I graduated from General Assembly in Austin and few other Vets who have graduated as well created a Vets that Code meetup (yes very similar name). So this dude reached out and threatened us with copyright infringement because of our meetup name. We did our due diligence and he didn't have any Trademarks filed and approved for anything relating close to it so we were happy to keep the name. Besides its a fucking meetup.

He then told us we could work together and use that meetup name but we'd get his resources and we'd have to pay a yearly fee and if we made any money we'd have to pay a royalty fee to him. We literally laughed at him and told him to go pound sand. So shortly after that he contacted his contacts at the New York General Assembly because that is where the CEO (more than likely the same user that responded to you) learned to code. The New York GA contacted the Austin GA and mentioned something to us about it and said we were stealing IP from him and we told them what he tried to do. They laughed as well. So yeah he and his organization is very scummy.

Update 6: after being a 3 week old post, a 3 hour old account shares their "positive experiences" because that's obviously not a throwaway made by vetswhocode trying to save face.

Update 7: One thing he mentioned in his Twitter, is that I am an entitled white male. And also I'm doing this because I didn't get into the program.

So let's get something straight, I didn't get the rejection email until after this whole thing happened, which you can see from my update #2. So this has absolutely nothing to do with the rejection. This has to do with the shadiness of their company and the possibility of them stealing money that belongs to veterans

Update 8: he deleted his Twitter post saying he might sue. I got a screenshot of it though.

update 9: this is from /u/Merc_Drew:

Since this one is the same as the one posted later I thought I would copy what in wrote on that post to...

Always google a company...

I mean their website is raising red flags immediately... their donation page shows $35,000 exact? 99% of the time that is going to have it down to the dollars and cents... especially being an open non-profit...

Their media page has no links to the actually media they are talking about...

Their contact page is just a phone number and a "contact us" form to fill out Copyright © #VetsWhoCode 2016. FRAGO, doing business as #VetsWhoCode, is an exempt organization as described in Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Our EIN is 47-3555231.

When you look up the EIN it is for Frago Digital Education for Veterans That group doesn't have a website

When I looked up the address they filed with the IRS last known address the organization provided to the IRS 2558 PLUM CREEK DR CORDOVA TN 38016-0108

It is a house...

Straight up scam