“Come Monday…” is a
weekly series that will involve a review of, or commentary about, websites, movies, documentaries, television
shows, sports, music, and whatever else may tickle my fancy at the time. Be assured that these reviews will be
generally positive, as in accordance to the Jimmy Buffett song “Come
Monday.” This is subject to change,
however. In fact, I would be most
derelict in my duties to neglect going on a rant every once in a while. For rants promote change, and change can be
good—right? Therefore, since good is
generally considered as being a positive force in 99.3% of the parallel
universes that I am aware of, even a rant could be considered as being
something positive, and a genuine hissy-fit would be even better (so I’m told).
Early
last summer, I was asked to publish something about [The Fresh Air Fund]. It can be read [here], and I hope this will
be a timely follow-up piece, which [Grace] helped to prompt.
Yes,
it well past an opportune time to actually host a child in desperate need of
breathing some fresh country air, but giving to worthy causes never goes out of
season. Be assured that The Fresh Air
Fund is indeed a worthy cause in a number of ways.
In
sharp contrast, we have had some fairly recent encounters with charities rife
with uncharitable aggression and apathy.
Since I am very hopeful that those encounters have been exceptions instead
of the rule, the names of the organizations involved will not be given.
The
first encounter involved a solicitation for a donation over the phone by a
charity that we were able to give to last year, but our funds are not nearly as
plentiful this year. So, when my wife
told the caller that we would not be able to donate anything this year, he
asked, “Why not?” He even went on to ask
what was different about this year, since we were able to give before, which
was very upsetting to us both.
If
I remember right, it was later in that very same week a little over a month ago
that she received another almost identical telephoned solicitation from another
charity that we had given to last year.
This “inspired” me to find out what I could about what was going on, and
I soon learned that both of the calls came through a third-party call
center. I was unable to find out if both
calls came from the same place, but since the script was almost identical, I
suspect that they were.
After
finding out about the third-party call centers, I sought to get into contact
with the actual charities, and the one I was able to get into direct contact
with via email immediately began an investigation of their own. Within a couple of days, they informed me
that they had tracked-down who had made the call to us on their behalf, and after
reviewing the recordings of several other calls that he had made to others, he was fired.
Be
assured that I did not want to see anyone lose their job. For all I was looking for was an emphasis
being made on there being a big difference between soliciting charitable donations
and collecting debts, but anyone with a semblance of common sense
(naturally-speaking, of course) should already realize that—right?
It
was a very different story with the other charity using a third-party call
center to solicit donations, however.
For they did not list an email address on their website. So, I called the telephone number that was
listed, and the one answering the phone offered to take our names off of their
list after evidently ignoring what I had told him about just wanting to help
them right an ongoing wrong. After
repeating my intentions a couple of times more, he finally put me on hold for
the director, and after almost an hour of waiting, I gave up.
Oh,
but wait—there’s more! For the second
charity did have the name of the call center they were employing listed on the
front page of their website, and I was able to send an email to them. Twenty-four days later, I received an email
from [MacRae’s Blue Book] that they had decided to not pass on my email to the
call center. When I sent a reply back to
MacRae’s about it looking like they were as serious about providing good
customer service as the call center was, it came back as undeliverable.
No,
we are not quite done yet. For when my
sister-in-law went to donate their old couch after getting a new one, she had
to go to three different charity outlets before finding one that was willing to
accept it. Now, I can understand if it had
become the home for a bunch of militant squirrels bent on the destruction of
all man-made items, but the only thing wrong with the couch was a very small
(we’re talkin’ teeny-tiny here) tear in the fabric on one corner of the back. Evidently, at least some beggars can afford
to be choosers.
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