Long-time readers may remember that Walt has been writing since April of 2010 (!) about the activities of a dubious "charity" which calls itself "Help Kids Canada" and/or "Kare for Kids". See "Help Kids Canada - a scam or only half a scam?", WWW 10/4/10, and "'Help Kids Canada', 'Kare for Kids' -- still out there?", WWW 14/6/16. These two posts have received literally 1000s of hits and numerous comments, mostly in the summer when the weather is nice and they send kids out into the streets to sell cheap chocolate bars to the philanthropically minded.
Just yesterday, Walt received and published not one but two comments from readers, presumably in Canada, alerting us to another questionable charity, which they think may be run by the same scam artists.
Anonymous wrote: "I may be wrong but the same address and number belong to Disabled Veteran Support Canada. Being a veteran we strongly believe this is a scam organization. They are set up in Ontario but set tables at Sobeys, Walmart, etc in other provinces (New Brunswick and Nova Scotia)."
Gail Silva added: "They are now operating as Disabled Veterans Support Canada and Rainbow Seniors Support Canada. They canvass door-to-door and set up tables in grocery and liquor stores. Right now they have a presence in Nova Scotia. They have a website and are registered with CRA but there's very limited information on exactly where the money is going. Every time I check their websites info is deleted or changed."
Walt doesn't have a huge staff of investigative journalists to ferret out the truth [Like CNN? LMAO. Ed.] but asked Agent 3 to do a little checking. As regards the address, the Kare for Kids website gives their address as:
7 Bishop Avenue, Suite 2107, Toronto, Ontario, M2M 4J4, CANADA. That part of Toronto is also known as "North York". The address is that of a residential condominium, not an office building, half a block east of a part of Yonge Street occupied mainly by shops and businesses, such as carpet stores, run by people of Middle Eastern origin -- Lebanese, Egyptian, Syrian etc. You know the type I mean.
Just around the corner and a couple of blocks north on Yonge Street, not far from the Iranian Plaza (really), is 6021 Yonge Street, which turns out to be a UPS store. Among other services, the UPS store will be pleased to rent you a mailbox, which gives you an address like: 6021 Yonge Street, Suite 323, North York, ONT M2M 3W2. "Suite 323" makes it sound like an office on the third floor of a tower block, but really it's just a mailbox. That address turned up in a thread on an Internet forum: "Beware buyer using address: 6021 Yonge Street Ste#323, North York, ONT M2M3W2, CANADA". (That was a dispute about "molded carpet kits", whatever they are.)
A similar address -- 6021 Yonge Street, Suite 811, Toronto, ON M2M 3W2 -- appears on the websites of... wait for it... Disabled Veterans Support Canada and Rainbow Seniors Support, the "charities" mentioned by our doubtful readers!
If you check out the websites, you will see that besides the address, the two "charities" share a phone number -- 416-733-7691. Neither of the sites offers any of the information that a legitimate charity should disclose: directors, officers, staff list, finances. They just ask for your money for such things as hiring entertainers to perform at senior citizens homes.
Rainbow Seniors Support claims to have been operating since 1996, and provides a "charitable registration number": 88909 2565 RR0001. Since it was Saturday, Agent 3 was unable to verify the number or Rainbow's status with the Canada Revenue Agency (the Canuck equivalent of the IRS). It's interesting, though, that Disabled Veterans Support Canada doesn't claim to be a registered charity. Rather, its website says: "DVSC is a division of Rainbow Seniors Support. Registered Charity Number: 88909 2565 RR0001".
That's as far as Agent 3 was able to get yesterday. Other than addresses in the same "Little Levant" neighbourhood, I can't make any connection between Help Kids/Kare for Kids and Disabled Veterans Support/Rainbow Senior Support, but they look dodgy to me. I have suggested to him, and advise you, dear Canadian reader, to contact a media outlet such as the CBC or the Globe and Mail with your concerns. Use the comments box to let us know what happens.
What if these scammers are nothing to do with the kids hawking chocolate bars? If they're Muslims, maybe any money they raise is going to ISIS!
ReplyDeleteUnited way.... director makes 375k per year, charges "55% local area canvassing fee", pays bonuses in order to sign people up in the workplace to donate and calls this person a "professional canvasser", generates millions of dollars a year from both public and government sources... CRA don't have the balls or the resources to investigate... do you? Problem here if you believe in conspiracies is that if you can actually prove this charity to be a scam, then you make ALL charities look like a scam... they are the BIGGEST charity in all of Canada... Oh and speaking of veteran charities... Wounded Warrier in the states was shut down as too much money was going in the "wrong" places, yet it exists in Canada to this day... strange... I gotta be honest I read a lot of your blogs on different topics but I really wish I could see something that blows me away rather than just thinking that this was an attempt to be racist in a very shy way.. I think you are better than this.. here's to hoping to read something a little better than this...
ReplyDeleteI think you can do better than this... I enjoy most of your writing but this is pretty racist... I did a little research myself... between cra webpage and Facebook this guy looks pretty white... didn't need to be an agent to figure that out.. just 5 mins on the internet lol...
ReplyDeleteAgent 3 says that area of Toronto (Willowdale) is known to some as "little Persia". If those involved are Iranians, that would make them Aryans -- as white as you, James.
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