At this festive time of year, you might notice a few more phone calls than usual. The holidays are a prime time for telemarketers to amp up their solicitations and try harder to get your business. And if you’re on the Do Not Call List (which you should be), you could still get calls from charities working to increase their donations. Before you get angry and slam the phone down, or worse, sign over your assets to a shady caller claiming to be a charity, make sure you know the best ways to handle charity telemarketers, especially during the next few months.

Some consumers mistakenly think that being on the Do Not Call list means that they will receive no solicitation calls for any reason, but there are exceptions to Do Not Call. One exception is for political campaigns, and another is for charities. Legitimate charities are not restricted in their telemarketing calls by the Do Not Call list; less-than-legitimate charities, though, are one way that some people try to skirt the Do Not Call list and make some money. So how can you tell whether the charity calling you for your holiday contribution is really legitimate and trustworthy?

First, ask questions to find out where the money really goes. On average, charities get just 40% of the money that telemarketing companies collect in their name. In some cases, the telemarketing company keeps 90% or more of all the money they collect on behalf of the cause they are purportedly working for. As awful as it sounds, this practice is legal; the Supreme Court case Madigan v. Telemarketing Associates ruled that telemarketing companies can keep almost all the money they bring in, as long as they don’t claim that more goes to the charity than it does. Charities claim that even a small percentage makes a difference for them, but if you want to give to a worthy cause, you probably shouldn’t do it via telemarketer, since you’ll also be lining the pockets of the telemarketing company.

I’ll give you an example from my personal experience: A man called me once on behalf of the “fraternal order of police,” asking me to contribute to police officers in my area and delivering an emotional plea for the cops who needed me. I asked him, “Are you with the police?”

“No, ma’am,” he replied.

“So you work for a third-party company doing the solicitations?” I asked. (This is exceedingly common, of course, and doesn’t mean a charity is less than reputable.)

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Is your company a for-profit company, or a non-profit company?” I asked.

“For profit.”

Ah. Now we were getting somewhere. “So what percentage of my donation actually goes to the police?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, back on script, “Ten percent of the money that goes to the police goes to…”

“No,” I said. “What I mean is, if I give you $100, how much of that $100 goes to the police, and how much stays with your company?”

“Um, I don’t know that, ma’am.”

“Because you see, I know your company wants to make money, and I know that many telemarketing companies who solicit for charities only donate a small percentage to the charity itself. So why would I give any money to you, when I can just give it directly to the police in my area and make sure that it ALL goes to the cause that I support?”

“Well…” he didn’t have an answer.

I hung up with a clear conscience, knowing that any “donation” I made to this caller’s company would have mostly gone to the company itself, not to the cause they claimed to support.

By law, the telemarketer has to give you their full name, the company they work for, whether they’re paid for their job, etc., but you have to ask first. They’re not required to volunteer that info, and they’d usually prefer you didn’t ask. Legitimate charity calls will not have anything to hide when you ask them these questions.

Protecting yourself and your charitable donations doesn’t stop there, though. Make sure you never give out sensitive information, such as a credit card number, Social Security number, or bank account information, over the phone. Don’t give out your mailing address; instead, offer to confirm the address they have on record, and even if the address is wrong, confirm it anyway. If they have the wrong information for you, it might be a way of trying to trick the RIGHT information out of you, so don’t tell them what the real information is. Don’t give out your email address, and don’t let the telemarketer send you to a website to pay your charitable pledge, since that website might be a scam site that was set up to look legitimate and collect personal info from victims.

If you want to make a contribution but want to be safe about it, ask the telemarketer to send hard copy donation information to the address they have on file. If it’s wrong, just play along until you say goodbye and hang up, then look up the address of the charity you want to support and send them your contribution directly. That way, you’ll know that your money is going where you want it to go. All charities are happy to take direct donations if you offer them, and bypassing the telemarketing company entirely means that your identity is safe.

You can’t do much about charity telemarketing calls, since they’re exempt from the Do Not Call list, but you can take steps to keep your identity safe and make your contributions count among the charities you prefer.  

Sources for this article: Associated Content, North Carolina Attorney General’s Office, MSN.com