I own some vacant land in northern Minnesota - not fancy lakeshore, just woods and scrub brush with some wetlands - inherited from my father forty years ago. I sometimes go up in the summer to hike and clear some trails. Some years I lease out the property to local deer hunters for the autumn.
And every year I get letters offering to buy the property. These don't come from local residents, who can find much better land to build on, or from hunters who prefer to lease rather than buy. The offers come from people in Alabama, Arizona, Montana etc - always with a ridiculous lowball offer. The senders of these letters harvest public records which show ownership and tax-assessed value, and they try to find owners who are either ignorant or desperate for money.
This year one of the letters, from "Land for Heroes" at a Boston address, was different - it asked me to "join their mission to help U.S. military families needing assistance." "If we can buy your property for cash, we will donate in your name an additional 10% of the purchase price to one of our chosen charities." Enclosed with the cover letter was a real estate purchase agreement offering me less than a third of the tax-assessed value (which in turn is typically is less than retail value).
I'm always offended by these letters because I think of the widows and elderly demented owners who will fall victim to the offers, but this year I'm also totally pissed off that the offer is cloaked in the guise of fake patriotism. I spent 30+ years working in the Veterans Administration, and I view crap like this as being a distant relative to stolen valor.
I'm not calling this a scam per se. It is presumably a valid offer to pay real cash for real property. But it's sleazy and I hope these people step on a thousand lego blocks in their bare feet.
There are so many "charity" fundraising organizations that are just scams that we ought to have a very small government agency that does nothing but cancel their abilities to do business.
ReplyDeleteLet's say, any organization where less than 75%? of the funds raised go to the cause for which they were raised.
I think you underestimate how many of those charities there are, particularly private foundations which largely exist to transfer wealth from one generation to the next, and the next and the next. Rather than going after "charities", change the laws that allow them to exist.
DeleteYou should also be looking at churches, because many, many of those are about rinsing money from idiots and they don't deserve, or need, charitable status. Obs that will never happen in the US.
Yes. Barf.
ReplyDeleteI'm willing to call it a scam.
ReplyDeleteSadly, I cannot predict there will be any moves to curtail this sleazy kind of behavior in the next 4 years.
ReplyDeleteSadly, I expect the same number of curtailments in the next 4 years that we got in the previous four and the four before that and the eight before that and the and the eight before that. One suspects that the "elite" of our country may be in cahoots with the vermin.
DeleteIt's a SCAM
ReplyDeleteNo need to 'suspect' Rocky the 'elite and the 'policons' have proven you correct with their greed driven self-serving for many many years now.
ReplyDeletedisgusting! They may be "legal" as a non-prof (though I can't find them on charity navigator), if as promised they give 10% of the lowball purchase price the conned land owner agreed to, but outside of the non-prof, they are realtors, after all. So they buy low, donate 10% of low, and then sell higher and reap the profits.
ReplyDeleteI worked as a caregiver for an elderly friend - ON LIMITED INCOME - and watched her willing give money to charities BECAUSE they were to help veterans. Fortunately, she let me teach her how to research first, and she was selective after that. But how many other victims? Shameful greed; I HOPE there is a God, and justice somewhere...
I totally understand. I had an elderly widowed aunt who donated $$ to any charity that featured the word veteran. I remember her donating money to an Obama impeachment fund the week before his term ended.
Deletethe greedy realtors behind the con:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.land.com/member/michael-katherine-aillon/1074396/
under cover of the non-prof, 10% of the lowball purchase goes to their selected charity. then THEY SELL the land for much more and KEEP the LARGE profit.
Not surprising, of course, but thank you so much for doing the necessary research to provide documentation.
DeleteA new way for the corrupt to wrap themselves in the flag.
ReplyDelete