I get solicitations at my office on a regular basis asking for donations. Usually what they ask for and the reason they claim to need it does not match. We actually donate tens of thousands every year, but not to anyone soliciting us.
A regular is one supposedly from a celibate nun practicing full silence. Always asking for some fairly sophisticated office equipment, with the donation going to a nun friend living and working out of a hut with no electricity in an Amazon jungle. Yeah, full disconnect there. [emoji23]. But she does always include a little thumbnail sized picture of her and her friend, printed on a very low res inkjet printer. Usually get a little hand written note and pic about once each month.
The beggars and scams seem to increase constantly. Even our daily regular orders have to be "vetted" and takes a bunch of time that we didn't have to do 20 years ago. Unfortunately about half of them are from crooks/scammers/stolen credit cards.
Last week received a purchase order from a well known Boston University. Doing a bit of research before hearing back from the university purchasing department, discovered that the requested $15,000 worth of product be delivered to a "new receiving location ". Turned out to be a grungy little house just off campus, but near their central receiving. Of course insisting on net 60 terms for the university. So if we fell for it, would be around 60-90 days before we started calling the Uni asking for payment. By then the crooks would be looooong gone.
Sent from my mind....using Tap-a-Thought. (tm)