I just had a phone call from the Breast Cancer Foundation. The solicitor said I had donated $20 last year and would I repeat the donation? I didn’t recall having donated, but I said OK, and when someone else came on the line to verify my address, she used one I haven’t lived at for five years. I said, “I haven’t lived there for some time,” and she said, “The donation was two years ago.”

I said, “I don’t like being told I donated last year when I didn’t,” and she hung up immediately. I’d already decided to check my records to see if I had actually donated last year, because the same thing happened a few months ago, with an organization I would have thought reputable; they had my correct address but I had no record of the donation. I received the envelope but didn’t send the donation.

I assume this is the latest scam by telephone solicitors. I remember that something similar happened four or five years ago, when a phone soliticitor said I had donated $100 the previous year, and I responded I never donated that amount and hung up.

Have others had similar experience with lying solicitors, and is there an address to report such occurrences to?

Ann Gerike

Coupeville