WRECK RACKETS
Advertising which offers you an opportunity to contribute to “your favorite charity” has been a marked area of fraud for many years now, but the offer continue to multiply which indicates that the scam is growing.
You have certainly see such ads, which encourage you to be generous by giving you old car to a church, orphanage, or to some other fund. drive. Evidence is abundantly available which shows that very little of the amount of money so raised ever gets to the charity it pretends to be sustaining. Ten per cent, at best, ever actually gets close to the target and the rest goes in to the pockets of the organizers. It has grown into a multi-million dollar fraudulent scheme.
It is so easy for an individual or an affiliated church group to see such offers as new way to give by donating used cars to those who will resell them and send the profits along to the charity of your choice. The “wreck” - which is the misleading name given so often to an old car - can be refurbished a bit and re-sold or it may end up in a “chop shop” where certain parts of a specific car will be removed and sold to advantage. Some particular; models will bring a worthy return on the used car markets in South American and other areas.
Numerous warnings have been issued concern this type of fraud, but the practice continues unabated and is even growing in some areas. The cheater who runs these frauds may, from time-to-time, actually make token gifts to certain genuine charity organizations from who they will then solicit words of appreciation, recommendation,and even written testimonials for their “fine work.” The opportunity can. then we extended to a new set of car-donaters to join in this modern way of giving to the needy.
This particular form of charity cheating fit the American personality well, too. Many Americans are “in love with the automobile” and this works to the charity cheaters advantage, We hate to part with our old car which has been ,in a sense, a member of the family: and has served us well. We don't like the idea of it being sold on a corner lot, or taken apart or sent to the scrapyard press jaws changing it to a chunk of metal for use in seaside landfill or pier project of some sort. It seems proper to many Americans that the way to part with such an old wheeled friend might well be to pass it along to others who do not have a car. If there are people offering do the actual work of physical transition of the vehicle to those in need one should make it as easy as possible for them to do so.
If you wish to sell your old car and donate the proceeds to your favorite charity, go ahead , but don't count on any crooked convoy to do the actual changing for you.
A.L.M. April 17, 2004 [c513wds[.
