Scam alert

[paulrace]

I have tracked down one of the scam sites that lists our URL as a place you can write and get free Christmas money.

http://angiesangelhelpnetwork.com/help- ... lies/82-2/

Cute angel in the header aside, this site exists for no other reason than to drive traffic to its advertisers. They actually help nobody but themselves, and they inconvenience a lot of other people, both hurting families who are fooled into wasting time asking for help from people who can't or won't help them, and the recipients of those e-mails, many of whom wind up worried that they're being "unChristian" by refusing to send money to random strangers whose stories they can't verify.

Incidentally, when I've been able to verify those stories, I've discovered that the vast majority were false. Worse yet, I realized that I was wasting time and resources tracking down strangers that should have been going to people right in front of me who need help.

If you saw our URL on one of these scam pages and you wrote us asking for money and we never replied, now you know why. But the people who owe you an apology are the ones that listed us on their scam page in the first place.

Once again, we help local people that we know, and we help national organizations with branches in your town so they can help people where you live. We've learned the hard way that trying to get outside that pattern doesn't really help anybody who actually needs it.

Thanks for understanding.

- Paul