Live fundraising solicitation call w/blocked Caller ID (xxx) yyy-zzzz recorded 07 April 2014 ("Laura of Innovative Teleservices" professional fundraiser for Childhood Leukemia Foundation)
Caller ID: completely blank
Note: called December 29 & 31, 2013 also from a totally blocked Caller ID
Live fundraising call from "Innovative Teleservices on behalf of Childhood Leukemia Foundation" using completely blocked phone numbers.
I never contribute to "professional fundraisers" because they rarely give more than 10% of collections to the charity and I wouldn't support this charity because of their conscious reliance on such an inefficient collection method.
Following is a transcript of this fundraising solicitation call:
[me] Hello?
[they] Hi, John?
[me] Who?
[they] Well, my information might be wrong. My name is Laura and I'm calling you today on behalf of the Childhood Leukemia Foundation in Brick, New Jersey. This year the Foundation is delivering gift baskets to sick children that are in cancer treament centers and these baskets have some really great things like toys and games, there's pajamas and even a $75 gift card inside. What we're trying to do is help lift their spirits as they go through their cancer treetment. I'm with Innovative a professional fundraiser and we have not mailed out anything to you yet. We want to make sure we can count on your support for a tax deductible donation. Most are helping with our Gold sponsor at $35 and Silver sponsor at $25. Can the children count on you for one of those?
[me] Uh, this is for children with leukemia you say?
[they] Yep, yep and we're, we're raising money for the gift baskets that I mentioned and also in addition to that the Foundation provides human hair wigs for the children who lose their hair during chemotherapy treatments.
[me] Uh, yes, I think I can contribute to that.
[they] Ok, would you like to do the Gold for $35? Or the Silver for $25?
[me] Uh, I'll, I'll go the Gold.
[they] I'm sorry, didn't hear you?
[me] Gold.
[they] The Gold for 35? Well that's very generous, now can I get your first name?
[me] My first name is Jason.
[they] And Jason your last name?
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[ I provide her a fake name and address courtesy of FakeNameGenerator.com ]
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[they] Excellent. Well first I want to thank you very much for your very generous pledge of $35, next I'm going to transfer you to our Records department. What they do is confirm the pledge. They're also gonna go over your address one more time, make sure I didn't do anything wrong and they're the ones who get the information together and mail it out to you and they uh they'll let you know what to look for in the mail, ok?
[me] Aw right.
[they] Please stay on the line sir, they'll pick right up.
[me] Awright. [you can hear me taking a deep breath]
[Records dept] Thank you for holding, are you comfortable with the 35?
[me] Yes I am.
[Records dept] (she verifies my address, asks if there's any "apartment or post office"?) Ok, um, you'll get it [pledge card] in about three days that's just when we ask you to send it back, ok?
[me] O h k a y .
[Records dept] All right, thank you so much, you have a nice evening.
[me] Ok, thank you, good night.
Thanks to Google Voice ( www.google.com/voice ) you can hear this recorded call on my Spam Calls web page:
I don't answer the phone if I don't know the number. However, I don't know if that helps cause the phone is picked up eventually by our answering machine. Won't that lead the callers to keep trying?
caller id says "CHILDHOOD LEUKE" (I suspect Childhood Leukemia) -- called at 8:16 am EST ... answered and the woman was looking for someone else...I asked what number she was dialing and she said "the number doesn't appear on my screen"....I said that's good, now how did you dial it? She said "it's automatic" -- ahhhh I replied, don't call again and hung up.I will add this to my block list.