It is amazing what stories people will use to steal from a nonprofit agency that does nothing but help people for free. Resurrection Street Ministry / Manna Food Bank of Arizona provides food and other necessities to Veterans, Senior Citizens, Single Parents, Poor and Recovery Group Homes. Last year more than 4,500, 000 pounds of food and in excess of 150,000 pieces of clothing and thousands of household items were given away for free. Over 75,000 emergency food boxes were distributed.
Along comes JOSEPH (JOE) MANCHEL of Manchel Wholesale Sign Builder a/k/a Amazing Sign Prices a/k/a Channel Letter Sign Wholesaler a/k/a Joe the Channel Letter Guy. He offers to build us a sign for our Thrift Store that supports what we do for people. He offers to build this sign at a very good price but not out of line with other companies but enough of a savings that we were drawn into his web of lies and deception.
Joe talked good stories. He is a small company working out of his farm in Alabama and even said he rescued animals for his "charity." Never found the charity or any information on it when we started looking into Joe. We did however find Joe has a very interesting past.
It is very simple, Joe talked us into sending him $1,454.05 on June 21 to build a sign that was to have been completed (verbally) in two weeks that has gone on and on with over 20 e-mails and more phone calls than we can count. He has used every excuse you can imagine. We demanded pictures by 06 AUG of the progress of our sign or we would go public with our claim and proceed to recover the Ministries money any way we could. We have not heard from him via phone or any other method of communication. One excuse was great! He said the "supplier" sent pink plastic (should have been red) and he would get back to me that day with shipping information. That was 09 JUL 12. Again there are far to many to put in this complaint.
We are seeking others that have been taken by this con artist. We have discovered one other and want to find more to turn this thief over to the Attorney General of Alabama for prosecution. Help us put a stop to people like this.
Footnote: Our ministry would not have spent the money on a sign if we did not have to have one on the building as required by our Landlord. You see, that $1,454.04 could have bought well over 12,000 pounds of food to give away to the needy. Our ministry is operated by volunteers. None of us are paid so we can use every penny we take in to food God's people.
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