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This is something that ticks me off because police charities are near and dear to my heart, given my husband works for the police, and often donates time to their endeavors.
I’ve had several phone calls in the past week from someone claiming to be from the Police Athletic League. Normally I joke around a bit with these callers saying that I’m not going to donate until policemen’s wages are raised, or that giving my husband is all the charity I can afford at the moment, and they’ll understand and stop calling, but PAL weren’t, or so I thought.
But it turns out with a bit of digging that this was not actually the real Jacksonville Police Athletic League but an extortionist of some sort. They’re using a number which just pops up saying “St. Johns FL” on my caller ID which may mean they’re actually using a cell phone. 904-547-0514 is the number which shows up when they call me.
Today I asked them if there was anyway I could be taken off the list because with my husband being a police officer, they should realize that we’re too broke to donate, I was told, “Oh, well, my wife’s a teacher, so you should know how broke I am too,” I said, “Touche, but seriously, how can I get off your list so you’ll stop calling me because this is getting ridiculous,” “Send $25 and we’ll stop calling you.” Well, that got my back up, understandably so, I would think. After I hung up on them I realized that was a kin to blackmail or extortion and wondered how many other people they’ve gotten to donate that way, that’s just shoddy business practice and despite his insistence that the PAL was a legitimate organization I figured I would do some digging.
First I tried calling back the number to speak with a manager, but all I was getting was the busy signal. Googling the phone number itself gave me several listings like the one I’ve linked above saying that the number was people saying it was PAL or saying they were other things, but often times when people called back they got a recording saying the number was disconnected.
I wasn’t about to wake my husband up with this so I instead googled the Police Athletic League to check if it was a legitimate place and found the Jacksonville PAL’s main office and called them. I spoke to a lady called Vicky who works there was mortified that someone would be calling me in such a manner. She said that whenever PAL calls someone it’s going to show up “Police Athletic League” or PAL or something like it which makes it clear, and they would never tell someone such a thing. She suggested if I get another call that I tell the person I’m recording the call and will be passing it on to the proper authorities.
I’ll have to check with my husband what the legalities on that are but you can bet I’m going to be a bit more harsh with them from now on because that’s ridiculous. It’s one thing if he was from the charity and just needed to be educated on call etiquette, but to be masquerading…that’s a whole other level of illegal.
That’s terrible! Very disappointing..