Have You Received This Bizarre Phone Call?

I got the strangest call last night as we were cleaning up from dinner. It was someone that identified themselves as being from a local youth sports program that will remain unnamed.  

The person asked me if I'd like to buy an ad in their program.

Now, I'm pretty tied into youth sports in this area, but I had never heard of the league. I was curious about it, and was JUST about to agree to make a donation, but my gut just told me that something was "off" just a little bit.

I asked if I could give the person a call back, but they said no. Strike one.

I asked for the person's name and where they were calling me from. He gave me his name, and told me he was calling from Marion. Again, my gut was telling me that he wasn't from the area. Strike two.

The man then told me that they'd be "collecting" on Friday. When I asked him what he meant, he told me that he'd need my home address, and that I should just tape the payment to my front door and that somebody would be around to pick it up. I mean, WHAT?!?!? Strike three.

WHO is agreeing to do this in the year 2018 after getting an unsolicited phone call? There was NOTHING about the phone call that was normal. The guy's tone, the odd request to tape money to the door, none of it made sense.

I hung up the phone and called the police immediately. Not surprisingly, they told me that nobody should be giving out their home address and taping money to their front door. They thought that was a bad idea.

I was still upset after I got off the phone with the police. I've been associated with many different local youth sports leagues, and the thought of someone using a league's name to rip off people in the area was making my blood boil.

I decided to track down the league president to give him a heads up that someone was doing this. When I got a hold of him, I was floored to find out what I heard next.

Guess what? The call was legit.

It. Was. Legit.

The president told me that the league hires an outside company to make these cold calls for the fundraising efforts. He said that they've been doing this for seven years, and that this was his first complaint. Apparently, seven years' worth of people have been willing to offer up their home address to a stranger on the phone, and tape their donations to their front door. 

I guess it's me. I must be getting old. I'm not as trusting as I used to be.