I used to believe the caller was who they said they were till I heard a guy on the radio
that wrote a book about how he worked flim flaming people over the phone. How much
validation can you get from a name or a voice on a phone? Do you know what it takes
to set up a bank account and mail drop?
I give time and assets locally & directly for a specific need and do not expect recognition
or compensation.
i had an acquaintance who did this for a living for many years.not a close
acquaintance, just someone with whom i had mutual friends.
the word "phony" was coined to describe folks like him. that is the actual truth.
the word was created shortly after the development of the telephone to describe
a flim flam artist who worked over the telephone.
he was really good at what he did... i had the opportunity to watch him work
one day for an hour or two, pitching three different charities to his "tap sheet",
a list of people who'd give to almost any charity. mostly elderly folk, the profile
was a widow or widower in their late 70's or early 80's.
their was usually a "gift" like light bulbs or some other household thing that
would be left when the runner picked up the check. hence the "light bulbs
for the blind" charity joke.
first rule.. never mail the check. always have them leave it under the doormat
on the front porch. the runner can leave the gift when he picks it up. even tho
what was being done was perfectly legal, this avoids the US post office and
mail fraud investigations. while that dog can't hurt you, having it bark in your
ear is annoying, and to be avoided, i was told.
he worked with a dozen different charities, pitching multiple charities to
the same people on the same day. he'd stage them, and a base hit was
the runner being able to pick up a single check at once, up to a home run,
which was four checks at once from the same doormat.
when working, he kept three runners busy. he'd stage his calls to keep
the travel time down to a minimum.. he worked in the south orange county
area, and there are two leisure worlds that he referred to as the "mother ships".
sound pretty seedy? it is. now, the really ugly part... the money.
the collector keeps 90% of what he collects. he has to pay the runner
out of that, and pay for the trinkets, but the fellow i knew cleared $400~$500 an
hour.
it was like watching someone ring up groceries, in the hour i watched him.
it had a weird, icky feeling to it.... he'd call these people, and murmur a
few words, and that was it. no canned pitch, no hype. average phone call
was maybe 3/4 of a minute or so. the fellow said he'd adapted some of
the techniques of neuro-linguistic programming to what he did. he'd been
calling some of these people for years, several times a week, and they
never seemed to get that it was the same guy, over and over. creepy.
all that is my long winded way of saying i'd never give any money to anyone
who calls on the phone for any charity, no matter how noble.
that 90-10 split is a common ratio. the charities go for it, 'cause 10%
of something is better than 100% of nothing, and volunteers calling for
charities don't get hardly any money. phone solicitation is hard work.
and dirty work. afterwards, i wanted to wipe my feet, wash my hands,
and use Q tips on my ears.
