Sunday, November 13, 2022

The Charitable Liar

 Now that the relentless political phone calls are over, we can get back to the fundraising calls. Tim always listens politely. I simply cut to the chase. I tell them that we never make a phone donation, but that they are certainly welcome to send us material. Once we do a bit of sleuthing on line, we can usually decide if this is something we want to donate to. 

Anyway, I don't generally answer a phone call from a number I don't recognize. I let the machine get it, but Tim takes the calls, and as I said, he listens politely. 

He came out of the office holding the phone with a puzzled look on his face. A breast cancer charity called to thank him for last year's monthly donation and ask if he'd like to continue his donation this year. 

"Did we give money to *******?" he asked, with a confused look on his face. 

No. We did not. 

Interesting way to fundraise, 

26 comments:

  1. We get " scam" calls here in England all the time, but I have never had any " fundraising" calls! I immediately block the number on my phone, but they always have many more numbers they can phone from! I sometimes answer and string them along for a while.....thus saving someone else for a while!

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    1. They are very popular here. We get multiple calls from a police charity and from charities fundraising for an assortment of maladies. They are not 'scams' like the phone calls you get from 'microsoft' or the 'IRS', but there are many shady charities out there who spend most of your donation on keeping themselves in business rather than the need it advertises you're helping.

      The best scam call response I've ever heard? Someone received a call from a foreign voice saying, "We have two of your relatives here." The fellow, thinking quickly, said, "OMG! Please tell me it is not Julius!" in a panicky voice. "We have Julius," came the response. "Is he still with Desmond?" Again the voice answered, "Yes. We have Desmond and Julius. They are both in great danger unless you cooperate with us." The voice detailed how much money he needed and how to send it to them, and if he did not, he was warned that things would be very bad for his friends. The man protested, 'I don't have that kind of money." The voice said, "Your friends will be shot." The man said, "Well..." in a drawn out way and then as if he is reaching a decision, says, "Oh, just go ahead and shoot them and remind them that they should have just paid me back the $20 they owe me."

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  2. Debby do you and Tim still have a landline? I reluctantly gave up mine last summer, but I really don't miss it.

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    1. We are stuck with our landline. We got a bundle deal on the phone, internet and television. If we get rid of the phone, our television rate will double.

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    2. Understood! I was in that same triple play situation for umpteen years (until I finally realized a year ago I live in the city and didn't need cable).

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    3. Our television is tied into our WIFI. The bundling 'deal' is a scam.

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  3. I have a foreign foster child and we support the local cat lady to some extent. There are aa few other contributions, but I gave up trying one Christmas when we seemed to have at least dozen requests. I just tossed them all. Not that most aren’t worthy, but my resources are limited.

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    1. I think it is best to finance the charities that you are familiar with. The local ones, in our opinion, are the best. You can see their work close up. We have a local TNR group trying to get off the ground. I am trying to help that group, both financially, and physically assisting.

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  4. I don't answer if I don't recognize the number. If they start a message on the answering machine and I recognize them I answer.

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    1. We have what is known as a 'Do Not Call' list. Supposedly, you are able to tell them to take you off their phone list. If they call again, they can be fined. The end result of this is that many of the people who call simply don't identify.

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  5. I don't answer if I don't know who is calling.

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    1. Nor do I. Tim is a more uncomplicated person. He answers, listens politely and then tells them no.

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  6. Can you not go ex directory for your landline calls? We don't even have a landline any more. Just our mobile phones.

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    1. I'm not sure what you mean by 'ex directory' but if we get rid of our landline, we will lose the bundle deal. We might save the 30-odd dollars on the phone, but we were shocked to discover that by 'unbundling' (the package for WIFI, television, landline) our television costs will go up like crazy. We will probably just abandon television, next time around, and dip our toe into the world of 'streaming'. We will dump the landline then.

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    2. Telephone Directory means the book everyone gets with all the landline numbers printed in it. Ex directory means your number is not printed in the book.

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  7. I usually ask how much the organization gets and how much your company gets for helping them, it is usually 85 percent for them and 15 for the organization. That means every dollar I might give them they keep 85 cents. I just tell them if I want to help someone, I will do it in my little town.

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    1. I usually don't run into that sort of ratio. Perhaps it is because I've gotten familiar with the names of the groups I will never deal with.

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  8. Weird! I must say I never get these calls anymore. Which is a good thing.

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    1. You know, I was being bombarded with porn advertisements after I got this phone (the number had belonged to a young man in town. I actually knew who he was). Even two years later, I was still getting phone calls and texts. I was faithfully blocking them as they came in but still they came, one right after another. It really was quite frustrating. But it stopped. When I went to England, I shut my phone off while I was there for a month and did not turn it back on until I hit the states. It took me a couple weeks before I noticed that I don't get any of those types of calls anymore. Zero.

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  9. I didn't think those charity calls worked very well. If I want to donate to you I will, you don't need to ask. Then when mother in law went into care and we were going through her papers we found that she was donating obscene amounts of money to unheard of charities. I guess they suck in the gullible.

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  10. I was probably clearing five or six messages a day from our answering machine hooked up to a phone that doesn't ring. But I haven't cleared a one since last Tuesday.

    For probably a decade, we just check messages on our answering machine and since the phone doesn't ring, we never answer. Anyone that knows us personally has our cell phone numbers and call us on them if they need to speak to us. Many have ditched their landlines but now get inundated with calls on their cell phones. For the token price we pay for the landline which comes as part of our television/internet package, it is well worth the price.

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  11. Oh my! You do exactly what we do. We say the exact same thing and Art always researches carefully before we send in our contribution to any charity.

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