636-206-3833 called once on April 14, and once on April 15. Each time, they hung up in the middle of my answering machine's greeting message.
The caller ID said "United Breast C". A "net" search matched that name to the "United Breast Cancer Foundation.
Eight hours after the second call, I received a call from 636-224-3169. Again, the caller ID said "United Breast C". And again, they hung up in the middle of my answering machine's greeting message.
I looked up "United Breast Cancer" on the "net". I found an article in the Tampa Bay Times. The article contains the following information:
"The charity's mission is to provide grants and assistance to patients and families coping with breast cancer. ..."
"The charity has raised about $11.5 million over the past 10 years and spent more than half of that on professional fundraisers.
"About 6 percent of the money raised has been spent on direct financial assistance to those in need."
The article contains a spreadsheet covering ten years of operations. Here is a summary of the 2009 figures:
Money raised: $2,000,733
Money paid to the "solicitor" for raising the $2,000,000: $1,083,974
Money turned over to the charity: $916,759
Salaries to the charity: $201,434
Cash paid in direct aid: $87,647
Per cent of money raised that was paid in direct aid: 4.38%
Reported totals to "programs": $830,740
There is no breakdown of the "programs" figure, but for 2009, if someone donated $10.00 to the charity, only 43.8 cents went to people who needed help with their medical bills.
Incidentally, the name of the article in the Tampa Bay Times was "America's Worst Charities". The article contained a link to a listing of the companies that did fund solicitation. Over the years, the soliciting companies charged an average of pretty close to 50% of what they collected for charities.
I have gotten several hangups from this group. It always says United Breast C and they never leave a message. I've heard before most reputable charities don't make cold calls like this. I would never give phone to a charity which called me out of the blue.
They called me at exactly 8:00 a.m. this morning and then just hung up when my answering machine picked up. Doubtful this is anything but a fraudulent charity at best. Caller ID shows "United Breast C"--as though Caller ID means anything these days.
8am in the dammed morning "United Breast C" called and hung up on the answering machine, waking us up,
They called back later and when we actually answered and asked them what they wanted a woman hung up on us.
They were using the number 636-224-3169, apparently they have multiple numbers.
We've also gotten numerous calls from CCI, a supposed breast cancer fundraiser at 636-323-9278.
Are they all legit or fake? We wont risk it, but we're tired of the harassment.