They victimize the elderly, who can hardly afford to “give away” their wealth. My elderly mother is being targeted by such organizations. Her mailbox is overflowing with requests for charitable donations, and her phone is constantly ringing. Mail requests include an eye popping array of cheesy gold embossed “certificates of appreciation,” cheap pen/pencil sets, and little American flags. Many arrive by FedEx and registered mail. These vultures carefully study their demographics. Their targeting is relentless and rapacious. My elderly mother had been fully convinced that starving Cambodian orphans, and legless Army veterans were directly dependent upon her largess; that they had a personal connection with her. Holding out her arms overflowing with mail, she tearfully broke down one evening, as her phone rang in the background, “What am I going to do? I can’t help them all! Those poor people!”
“Preying on widows and orphans” goes all the way back to the Bible. My mother, age 81, is also a victim of this. My nephew is living with her right now and he throws most of her mail away before she sees it. Nevertheless she has been victimized repeatedly before we could intervene. We had her phone number changed and that helped a lot.