I am sorry to say that I couldn’t get more information about this solicitor, they were in a big hurry to get off the phone once I started asking questions.  However, I did capture the number that came up on the caller ID.  So if you get a call from 866-825-2610 it is probably the same people so watch out!

Now, that isn’t to say that I don’t give money to charity, on the contrary, I do.  But I have been burned in the past so I try to check them out now.  That’s why this post is important, I found a great charity that helps children in need, it was started by a pair of cool guys (Yep, the same pair that brought us Penny Arcade) and they take almost nothing in “administrative fees”.  Instead of taking 85% off the top, these guys take as little as possible and make sure it doesn’t go over 2% or 3%.  Yeah, you read that right, it’s not a typo.  Have I got your attention now?  Good.

The charity is called Child’s Play, and they work to help children who are stuck in hospitals with long term illnesses cope with the mental anguish, fear, boredom and everything else they go through.  Tons of money goes into the medical research side of things which is good, but these guys are trying to help the other side, the kids and coping with whatever hardship they are going through.  They are hooked up with over 70 hospitals all over the world with more getting added all the time.  Most donations are made through a third party like Amazon.com.  You can go to the Child’s Play website to pick the hospital of your choice, and then buy something on amazon for that hospital.  It can be a toy, a game, a game console, books, whatever moves you, it’s all good.  However, instead of shipping it to your location, you can instead ship it directly to the hospital.  Wanna know the best part?  100% of that donation just went to the hospital that you picked.  You can donate money too, and other things/ways/etc that are spelled out on their website, and almost everything goes straight to the intended target.

So, check it out, take a look at the site, spread the word and when you feel like giving, do some good with a charity that is working as hard as you are to help kids that need all the help they can get.

Thank you.

Today for example, I went to the local Wendy’s to get a sandwhich.  I order a chicken filet sandwhich, a large fry and since I am in my truck a small drink because the big ones don’t fit in the cup holder.  I pull around to get my order and I am handed a large drink … OK, fine, I decide not to say anything (I did pay for it after all) because I don’t want to hold up the line or anything.  I get my bag of food and pull away, and yes you guessed it, I should have checked the bag before I pulled out.  They at least got the sandwhich right, but instead of a large fry, I got a small fry.  Now, let me say that this wasn’t some huge catastrauphic mistake, it was just a misunderstanding at the drive through, no big deal right?  Right, except I see this almost every time at all of the drive throughs!  Wendy’s, McD’s, Bk, all of them, it’s like the people that work there just don’t care at all.

Another fiasco today involved my local pharmacy.  I got a prescription from my doctor today for an ailment he is treating, so I take it to the pharmacy and they run back and make sure it’s in stock and all that.  They then tell me it will be 30 minutes, so I decide to kill some time and grab a bite to eat (hence the trip to Wendy’s).  I give them 45 minutes, tossing in an extra 15 just for good measure and then head back.  When I get there and go to pick up my medicine, I am told that they can’t fill it until tomorrow for some reason.  So now I have just wasted almost an hour waiting for this, only to be told I can’t get it and have to make another trip into town tomorrow.  Again, the trip in and of itself is not the problem, it’s the jerking around and wasted time that pushes my buttons.

I am someone that has been in the customer service industry for more than 20 years.  I know what it’s like to provide good customer service, and I know when to stop being nice becuase your customer doesn’t deserve it, but it seems like most companies nowadays just don’t even try.  They get their customers all wrapped up in multi-tiered voice mail/menu systems so they don’t even have to talk to you and heaven forbid if they have a lock on whatever that particular service might be.  Utilities are great for that, for example, our local electric company American Electric Power (AEP) knows they are the only girl in town so they rape their customers every chance they get, they have some of the worst customer service I have ever seen, and are the most apathetic people in existence when the power is out.  Not to mention they raise the rates any time they want because they know that all of their customers are hostages.  What are we gonna do, go get service from another company? Yeah, they know.  They have gotten well over 100% in rate hikes in the last few years, blaming the majority of these hikes on coal prices.  I personally have seen my bill more than double, and that’s while at the same time working towards being more energy conscious and even replacing appliances, thermostats and more around the house with newer and more effecient units.

I could go on about the gas companies jacking prices at the pump claiming they had to in order to survive, all the while making record profits, but frankly I think you get the idea.  Customer Service is a lost art, and I for one am sad to see it go.  Maybe some stuffed shirt big wig out there will get some sense and realize that good customer service is really the key to success and building a large and loyal customer base.  Well, that and a good product too.

As soon as cancer was found, I noticed the immediate attempt at canonization of old Teddy by the main stream media. They are saying what a “great American” he is. I say, let’s get a couple things clear and not twist the facts to change the real history.

1. He was caught cheating at Harvard when he attended it. He was expelled twice, once for cheating on a test, and once for paying a classmate to cheat for him.

2. While expelled, Kennedy enlisted in the Army, but mistakenly signed up for four years instead of two. Oops, the man can’t count to four. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, former U.S. Ambassador to England (a step up from bootlegging liquor into the US from Canada during prohibition) , pulled the necessary strings to have his enlistment shortened to two years, and to ensure that he served in Europe, not Korea, where a war was raging. No preferential treatment for him like “he” charged President Bush received.

3. Kennedy was assigned to Paris , never advanced beyond the rank of Private, and returned to Harvard upon being discharged. Imagine a person of his “education” NEVER advancing past the rank of Private.

4. While attending law school at the University of Virginia, he was cited for reckless driving four times, including once when he was clocked driving 90 miles per hour in a residential neighborhood with his headlights off after dark. Yet his Virginia driver’s license was never revoked. Coincidentally, he passed the bar exam in 1959, amazing!!!

5. In 1964, he was seriously injured in a plane crash, and hospitalized for several months. Test results done by the hospital at the time he was admitted had shown he was legally intoxicated. The results of those tests remained a “state secret” until in the 1980’s when the report was unsealed. Didn’t hear about that from the unbiased media, did we.

6. On July 19, 1969, Kennedy attended a party on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts .. At about 11:00 PM, he borrowed his chauffeur’s keys to his Oldsmobile limousine, and offered to give a ride home to Mary Jo Kopechne, a campaign worker. Leaving the island via an unlit bridge with no guard rail, Kennedy steered the car off the bridge, flipped, and into Poucha Pond.

7. He swam to shore and walked back to the party, after passing several houses and a fire station. Then two friends returned with him to the scene of the accident. According to their later testimony, they told him what he already knew, that he was required by law to immediately report the accident to the authorities. Instead Kennedy made his way to his hotel, called his lawyer, and went to sleep. Kennedy called the police the next morning and by then the wreck had already been discovered. Before dying, Kopechne had scratched at the upholstered floor above her head in the upside-down car. The Kennedy family began “calling in favors”, ensuring that any inquiry would be contained. Her corpse was whisked out-of-state to her family, before an autopsy could be conducted. Further details are uncertain, but after the accident Kennedy says he repeatedly dove under the water trying to rescue Kopechne, and he didn’t call police because he was in a state of shock. It is widely assumed Kennedy was drunk, and he held off calling police in hopes that his family could fix the problem overnight. Since the accident, Kennedy’s “political enemies” have referred to him as the distinguished Senator from Chappaquiddick. He pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, and was given a SUSPENDED SENTENCE OF TWO MONTHS. Kopechne’s family received a small payout from the Kennedy’s insurance policy, and never sued. There was later an effort to have her body exhumed and autopsied, but her family successfully fought against this in court, and Kennedy’s family paid their attorney’s bills…. a “token of friendship”?

8. Kennedy has held his Senate seat for more than forty years, but considering his longevity, his accomplishments seem scant. He authored or argued for legislation that en sured a variety of civil rights, increased the minimum wage in 1981, made access to health care easier for the indigent, and funded Meals on Wheels for fixed-income seniors and is widely held as the “standard-bearer for liberalism”. In his very first Senate roll, he was the floor manager for the bill that turned U.S. immigration policy upside down and opened the floodgate for immigrants from third world countries.

9. Since that time, he has been the prime instigator and author of every expansion of and increase in immigration, up to and including the latest attempt to grant amnesty to illegal aliens. Not to mention the Pious grilling he gave the last two Supreme Court Nominees, as if he were the standard bearer for the nation in matters of right. What a pompous ass.

10. He is known around Washington as a public drunk, loud, boisterous and very disrespectful to ladies. JERK is a better description than “great American”.

Let’s not allow the spin doctors make this jerk a hero — how quickly the American public forgets what his real legacy is…and you just know it’s all BUSH’S fault!

Check it out here …

The folks at Right Wing News have a good breakdown of what I am talking about, check it out.

I am not saying that every front end to a charity is bad, but that vast majority of the ones that I have dealt with or been called by qualify as crooks and scam artists in my opinion.  Oh?  How can that be?  How can I be so cold?  I am going to explain, and you might be shocked by what you find out.

First thing, when someone calls you from one of these companies like the State Police fund, or the Fireman’s Charity League or even the one I received just tonight, the Sheriff’s Department taking donations for “Puppy Patrol” which is taking money for programs that teach kids to say no to drugs in school.  These all sound great, don’t they?  Yes they do, and that’s what they are counting on.

You see, it’s not the charities themselves that are the problem, at least not in most cases (there are some fraud charities out there, but they are rare).  No, the problem normally rests in these front end companies that do the soliciting and collection.  That problem is the amount of money, the percentage that gets passed on to the charity.  This is where it gets criminal in my opinion.

This “Puppy Patrol” charity that called me tonight, one thing I asked early in the phone call was how much actually got to the charity?  Most callers don’t like to answer that one.  In this case, it was 15% … yep, that’s it, only 15%.  For every dollar they collect from people, they keep $0.85 and give $0.15 to the charity.  OMG!!!  For every $100 they take in, they keep $85 and pass on $15, that’s it!  If they collect one million dollars ($1,000,000) in a year, they keep eight hundred fifty thousand ($850,000) and give only one hundred fifty thousand ($150,000).  Does it start to make sense now?

That’s right; these companies keep most of the money and only send bare minimums to the charity.  Now, they’ll claim that they have light bills to pay and employees to pay and more and that’s all true.  However, why can reputable charities accomplish all of this and keep only 20%?  They pass on 80% and not 15%, so what’s the big difference between these two types of companies other than one is legit and the other is run by greedy bastards that are exploiting people’s good nature for profit.

So, what’s my point in all this?  Before you give your hard earned money to some charity, make sure you ask them how much actually makes it to the charity.  If they only give 10% or 15% or something silly like that, don’t give them your money.  Instead give it to a local charity or directly to another to make sure that your entire donation goes where it should.  Personally, I don’t give to any company that passes on less than 70%, but that’s just me.