Yayasan Suria JB (YSJB) – Using the front as a disguise to cheat!
Perhaps taking a cue from our leaders how to cheat, many of our clients (the “Poor & Needy”) have resorted to all kinds of “tricks” to take volunteers/NGOs like us for a ride.
Our money comes from the public and we have a moral/legal duty to ensure the money is spent wisely and accountably. However, even the people whom we want to help have all sorts of tricks up their sleeves to cheat us.
Case No: 1
Using a Children’s Home(JB) as a front to con, for without children nobody would want to donate. Not registered with any government bodies, no proper accounts to show where the money goes to.
When questioned, we were taken “round & round” and we have since stopped supporting this Home in question.
Case No: 2
Visited another Elderly Care Home(JB) and wanted to help. The accounts(income & expenditure) were written on a whiteboard with this “sanitizer RM4,000 a month”. On further questioning, this Home has no records of money received, where the money goes to and they told me “when we received the money, we just spent”.
This Home is very hard working in sending out WA messages and FB postings to many people and many of my supporters asked me to check them out – a lot of photos, a lot of messages seeking help and very interesting stories to tell.
Case No: 3
With prepaid cards so cheaply and easily available, many seeking help keep on changing numbers and names to seek multiple assistance.
Same person, different numbers. However, when we asked for more info like address, NRIC no, photos, they are the same person.
We have cut off ties with such persons since.
Case No: 4
A real case of a Schizophrenic person (checked with hospital concerned, real) with an OKU card (checked, real) and got admitted to a local university (checked, real), we were impressed as being with mental disorder and wanting to study, we visited him at his home, saw his father and mother.
Transferred RM2,850 to his account which he subsequently paid to the university (checked, real) and we told him to study hard and will continue to support him for his 4-year course at the University.
But I got a message from another NGO requesting help for this same person. That was some 3 weeks after we gave him the money. This ‘clever’ guy told the NGO exactly the same story he told me earlier seeking for help. Of course, I told this NGO not to help.
A lot of people asked us to check out such cases as we are involved on helping many people. We have received another 2 requests for NGOs/NGIs regarding this case in question.
You see, this schizophrenic guy send to as many people as possible, with the same story, hoping to “strike” a few and collect the “extra” money.
Long story cut short, I called him up a few days ago with this message “STOP YOUR NONSENSE, WRITE A WA TO ALL YOUR POTENTIAL DONORS AND SCREENSHOT ALL THEIR REPLIES”.
He subsequently did and I got all the messages. He cried profusely, told him never to do such thing again, be a good person from now on. We always give people a 2nd chance, will be monitoring his movements, studies and hopefully, continue to support him until he finishes his course – of course, he left a “black mark” with us!
Many more such cases, too many to write. For volunteers, following me on my daily rounds, they have heard them all, with many more such “cheats” coming on the way – a never ending stories of a “cat and mouse” game!
Ever heard of a “blind man”, only pretending to be blind, and being discovered by someone one day when he took out his sunglasses one day and walked like a normal person like you and me?
Usually, you talk to a blind person first and he knows you are around, he pretends to be blind but when you don’t make noise, don’t talk and he doesn’t see you, he doesn’t know you are there and that is when this person who “discovered” that “this blind man is not blind” told me.
Strange but true. There are people out there trying to cheat volunteers like us who want to genuinely help them – it is a weird world, a dog-eat-dog world, only thing we can do is to do more background checks but too much of red tape means we can’t be helping more people as fast as we can. Somewhere along the line, there must be trust and trust is a very thin fine line!
It’s a fine balancing act for volunteers to navigate this slippery path of helping and not helping. Some of the people whom we have cut off ties since they cheated us have resorted to threats, even using religious “brainwashing” like chanting religious sayings, speaking in tongues, quoting religious sayings something to the tune that “we will be punished by God for not helping them”.
As volunteers/NGOs, we take all these in the stride, as our passion is in helping humanity, serving all with L
ve & Humility and using some common sense (if there is any left?) to discern what to do and who are the genuine ones to help.
Who says that as volunteers we have no stress? Still want to be volunteers?
Perhaps not?
Perhaps yes?
Welcome to the world of volunteerism!