Questionable alms collectors

Questionable alms collectors

From Media Indonesia

I am concerned by the increasing number of door-to-door collectors of donations who usually claim to act on behalf of certain foundations whose legality is not clear and whose location is only God knows where. Many of them are very insistent and resort to a variety of ways to gain the attention of the occupants of a house they happen to visit: from tapping on the fence with a coin to shouting a greeting in a very impolite tone. The trouble is that we cannot verify whether the collection is genuine because the address given -- often without a telephone number -- is usually somewhere far away.

At first I, though unwilling, often used to give money to them as I took pity on their appearance and was sometimes touched by their polite requests. However, something that happened to me a while ago has made me think many times before deciding to give anything to these donation collectors.

One day I was at my mother's house when one such collector came and tapped the fence with a coin. As I was then typing, I asked my mother's maid to see him and ask what he wanted. When the door was opened and he saw me sitting before my computer, he shouted to me, "Donation, ma'am." My mother's maid told him that the woman owner of the house was out but this man kept on shouting to me asking for a donation. Finally, as I was then too busy to do anything else, I simply said, "Sorry, not this time, Mas."

Then something I never would have expected happened. He said to my mother's maid, "Tell her I hope she dies soon." I heard it only indistinctly, but as soon as my mother's maid confirmed to me that he had said exactly that, I rushed out and asked him what he had just said. He spat before me, but because I then threatened to call the neighborhood chief, he took to his heels. Then I was told that before coming to my mother's house, he had knocked hard on the fence of a neighbor. Well, it is just another form of terrorization, isn't it?

I am really confused as to how to deal with such people. I have also heard that some criminals pretend to be donation collectors to case a house they make it their target. I'm horrified just thinking about this.

I should apologize to donation collectors who are honest and polite because the above may offend them. And to the authorities responsible for social affairs, I would like to call on them to think of a way to deal with this problem.

ELA

Tangerang, West Java