Got a call at my office. The call was transferred to me because I'm on the committee that approves charitable donations.
I was hit up for a donation to a children's toy drive for Christmas. He said I might remember seeing the news story about them on channel 11 last night. When I told them that I couldn't authorize a donation without approval from the committee, he immediately hit me up for a personal donation. I said I might be willing to donate, and he immediately asked for my credit card number. I said I wasn't comfortable giving him that, and he said he could come by and pick up a check. I told him I would be more comfortable dropping off a donation at his location, and he said that wouldn't work because of something about undercover officers (???).
This sounded fishy to me so I ended the call and tried to research his organization online. I didn't find much, nothing about a toy drive except for some news stories on Lupe Valdez' "Sheriff's Elves" drive from a couple years ago that was mixed up with felons. I found the channel 11 news story he referred me to and it's a Ft. Worth program called Cowboy Santas that accepts donations of all kinds at several locations. Obviously this guy was trying to piggyback on another group's publicity to solicit donations for his own group.
Anyway, maybe the really was with Dallas Sheriff FOP and maybe it is a legit charity and maybe not, but what's clear is that they go about soliciting donations in an unethical way, and do not inspire confidence. I would not recommend donating to them.
Same story here. They use the name "Dallas Sheriffs" and not the official, legal name of "Dallas County Sheriff's Department". "Dallas Sheriffs" could be a baseball team for all we know. "Fraternal Order of Police" is a legitimate organization and there is an already-identified scam going on using this name to solicit funds that go straight into the pocket of the solicitor.
I don't generally return calls from my office phone but the name "Dallas Sheriffs" is official-sounding enough to make most people worry about a loved one or something...enough to return the call. The guy's name was Jim Cason...I'd love to get his home phone #. You would think common decency would prevail on stuff like this but I guess not.
Got a message at our answering service to call the Dallas County Sherriff's office at this number and ask for Jackie Long. He started by telling me it wasn't an emergency and then asked if I had children in the Dallas county school system and mumbled something about a fingerprint program. I told him we'd moved out of Texas and he hung up nicely.
Definitely a solicitation of some kind. I think our company might have contributed in the past.