“Come Monday…” is aweekly series that will involve a review of, or commentary about, websites, movies, documentaries, televisionshows, sports, music, and whatever else may tickle my fancy at the time. Be assured that these reviews will begenerally positive, as in accordance to the Jimmy Buffett song “ComeMonday.” This is subject to change,however. In fact, I would be mostderelict in my duties to neglect going on a rant every once in a while. For rants promote change, and change can begood—right? Therefore, since good isgenerally considered as being a positive force in 99.3% of the paralleluniverses that I am aware of, even a rant could be considered as beingsomething positive, and a genuine hissy-fit would be even better (so I’m told).
Earlylast summer, I was asked to publish something about [The Fresh Air Fund]. It can be read [here], and I hope this willbe 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 ofbreathing some fresh country air, but giving to worthy causes never goes out ofseason. Be assured that The Fresh AirFund is indeed a worthy cause in a number of ways.
Insharp contrast, we have had some fairly recent encounters with charities rifewith uncharitable aggression and apathy. Since I am very hopeful that those encounters have been exceptions insteadof the rule, the names of the organizations involved will not be given.
Thefirst encounter involved a solicitation for a donation over the phone by acharity that we were able to give to last year, but our funds are not nearly asplentiful this year. So, when my wifetold the caller that we would not be able to donate anything this year, heasked, “Why not?” He even went on to askwhat was different about this year, since we were able to give before, whichwas very upsetting to us both.
IfI remember right, it was later in that very same week a little over a month agothat she received another almost identical telephoned solicitation from anothercharity that we had given to last year. This “inspired” me to find out what I could about what was going on, andI soon learned that both of the calls came through a third-party callcenter. I was unable to find out if bothcalls came from the same place, but since the script was almost identical, Isuspect that they were.
Afterfinding out about the third-party call centers, I sought to get into contactwith the actual charities, and the one I was able to get into direct contactwith via email immediately began an investigation of their own. Within a couple of days, they informed methat they had tracked-down who had made the call to us on their behalf, and afterreviewing the recordings of several other calls that he had made to others, he was fired.
Beassured that I did not want to see anyone lose their job. For all I was looking for was an emphasisbeing made on there being a big difference between soliciting charitable donationsand collecting debts, but anyone with a semblance of common sense(naturally-speaking, of course) should already realize that—right?
Itwas a very different story with the other charity using a third-party callcenter to solicit donations, however. For they did not list an email address on their website. So, I called the telephone number that waslisted, and the one answering the phone offered to take our names off of theirlist after evidently ignoring what I had told him about just wanting to helpthem right an ongoing wrong. Afterrepeating my intentions a couple of times more, he finally put me on hold forthe director, and after almost an hour of waiting, I gave up.
Oh,but wait—there’s more! For the secondcharity did have the name of the call center they were employing listed on thefront page of their website, and I was able to send an email to them. Twenty-four days later, I received an emailfrom [MacRae’s Blue Book] that they had decided to not pass on my email to thecall center. When I sent a reply back toMacRae’s about it looking like they were as serious about providing goodcustomer service as the call center was, it came back as undeliverable.
No,we are not quite done yet. For when mysister-in-law went to donate their old couch after getting a new one, she hadto go to three different charity outlets before finding one that was willing toaccept it. Now, I can understand if it hadbecome the home for a bunch of militant squirrels bent on the destruction ofall 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 affordto be choosers.
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