Scams and stuff

So, not much been going on lately.  Mariah, one of Amber's guinea pigs, did get adopted by a family that grows their own veggies all organic and everything.  Very nice people.

Other than that, it's been about business as usual.  Had a lot of things piling up on Wednesday, so Thursday (yesterday) was the day to figure out shipping quotes for everyone, get packages packed up, and so on.  So,  that was like 2 hours worth of cutting wood and packaging.  Most of them were just shipping quotes, so nothing too difficult, so those all got emailed out last night.

And then there was this email.  I got an email maybe a week ago from a guy and his wife saying they'd ran across the rescue and wanted to make a donation, but wanted to know more about the rescue if I could email them more info.  I do occasionally get emails like this, so it didn't seem out of the ordinary.  Course, if you read the title of this post, you know it wasn't your average "donation."  So, I email some info, and about a week later I get another email saying thanks for letting them know the info, they just want to make sure that  where they donate, the money is going to the animals.  Fair enough.  They asked if I volunteer at the rescue or what position I have, so that got me started on another long email about how there are volunteers (thank you all!) but not super often, so most of it is just me.  Which is fine, I take advantage of whatever help I can get.  So then last night I get an email back, which read:

Hi Ashley
   Thank you for your wonderful letter,
We made up our mind that we will be making two donations, one to your org, and the other to a small rescue.
   We have spoken to our agent, He will make out a check of $1600 to you. If it is okay with you, We want you to kindly deduct $800 for your org and have the remaining forwarded to the other rescue. They are old couple who use their home as a shelter have 6parrots, 4 furies and 17dogs, a litter of 6pups just arrived. dog that is desperately in need of a surgery.

I would like to know what name the check be addressed to and also an address it should be mailed to. 

Have to go now, heading to the movies with the Mrs 
Regards to your Family

Yours
D & S

...now, up until that, this whole thing did not seem suspicious.  I do get emails now and then from people wanting to donate and just wondering how the whole rescue works, and then this.  This just goes to show these people are getting smarter than your average "The price of Africa has willed you $5,000,000, all you need to do is cash the check and send $1,000,000 back to his nephew."  Which is more your average scam.  This is a lot less money, which I suppose for some people would raise less flags.  For example, I was talking to someone about this (won't say who), who asked what the problem was with cashing a check and sending part of it to someone else.  Which just proves there are people still out there that aren't aware of these scams.

So, I emailed back...

Hi,

I'm sorry, I can't do that.  I have read plenty of scams that require you to cash a check, send money back, and in reality, none of that money is actually there in the check, so you've just sent a buttload of your own money back to the other party.  I can't afford to chance that that would be the case here, as many people are fooled by those scams, and the rescue doesn't have that kind of money to play around with.  

I would love such a large donation and the rescue would benefit from it, but I see no reason why your agent would not be able to write out two checks for $800 each, which would not require me to send any money back.  If you are unable to do that, I am unable to accept your donation.

...and that's that.  I'm sure I will never hear from them again, but if I do, I'll be sure to post it here.  I'm not one of the stupid ones, and I have no doubt that the guy with the parrots and stuff is really the guy and his wife writing the email thinking "hehehe we're gonna get $800 from this sucker!!!"  Ah, no.  Sorry, wasn't born yesterday.  Sorry for the disappointment.

And actually, this really pisses me off.  Cause I genuinely care about the rescue and about getting donations if someone is thinking about donating, and I spent a decent amount of time answering this guy's questions about the rescue, and all of you who have emailed me know how I can go on and on and on for pages.  And I totally did with this guy, and then it's all a scam?  Pisses me off.  Not just because it's a waste of my time, but because it's a waste of rescue time that could have been spent listing animals, cleaning cages, and so on and so forth.

Unrelated, yesterday, had my mom down at the rescue with me.  I will be civil and say that there are definitely better vs worse people to have helping you, and with my mom not being able to stand for long periods of time, I realize I really need  younger people helping me out, as there's only so much someone can do sitting at a table.  But, she got some stuff done, so she was a bit of a help.  Dyed some toy pieces, filled water bottles, sifted out the rabbit litter pan.  As I packaged up the orders and fed everyone and so on and so forth.

In unrelated news, Ivan is going to be picked up Saturday, so today I need to make shelves for the cage they're getting and break everything down and pack it up.  I see I have two more emails from them, that I really should get to looking at, but you'd be amazed how little time I seem to have now that I have a full time job.  But I'm hoping to enlist my mom's help yet again today for setting up that cage.  I told the adoptive home that I would get it set up with shelves, and take pictures so they could try to recreate the cage at their house, and then take it all apart including breaking the whole cage down.  This is not a fun cage to put together, but I imagine taking it apart won't be too too bad.  I wouldn't want to be the family putting it together.  Don't get me wrong, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to piece it together, but this cage is more akin to a FN or something that has various panels that go together, rather than one big chunk of wire that all snaps in place.  Not specifically more complicated, but takes a little more thought.

Well, I should get to starting on real work now, it's 8:30.  Later.