About 2 months ago i got a cal from the navy veterans association. They were courteous on the phone asking for a donation. I said i would check them out and if they were legit might send them a check. They seemed to go the extra mile telling me to look them up with some state organization (attourney general' office?). They also understood my reservations about giving money over the phone. So far so good. They asked me to commit several times. Each time i said "not before checking you guys out"
So far so good.
A letter arrived for my pledge. And i started to snoop around the internet. A few things caught my eye.
The official navy veteran's association website says that you will never be asked to send money to a drop box. All collection centers they say are real offices with staff and such. Well i checked the address where my donation would be going. It's a UPS store in el cerrito, CA. Then i took a look at the street view via google maps. It is a UPS store. Not good.
Also the zip code on the return envelop was wrong. Should have been 94530. They had 64530. That does not seem to be a legit US zip. Messy work. Also not good.
There were also a number of other general thing i found about scams involving the navy veterans association. There are lots of them so this wasn't particularly damning.
Smells too fishy for me.
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