"the profit is in the paper"

[Zzz_]

"THE PROFIT IS IN THE PAPER"


As Salaam Wa Laikum

Unfortunately I won't be able to disclose my name for the purposes of anonymity and my safety. But everything I will talk about here is pure fact, the conclusion is for you to make.



A short while ago, I had the pleasure of working with Penny Appeal which I'm sure many of you will have heard of. While working for them, I learned a few things that didn't quite sit right with me in terms of how a charity should operate.
I'm sure like most people you have all the read the story that came out a few years ago about the money that it generated and how it was being spent etc.


While I was working there, part of the training included pulling on the heart strings of public and really "selling" them the story of misfortune of people from third world countries. Naz, the call centre manager, personally vetted each member of the team to make sure they were doing it exactly as he expected before you [a new trainee] were even allowed to pick up the phone and speak to a donor.


I remember one call, where a lady called in to make a donation, but before she did, she made a complaint, she said she was unhappy at the amount of paper that P.A were using as they had sent her family 5 separate letters, one for each member of her family, one for each donor. She asked me to pass on that her and her family should only receive one letter in future so as to save on costs. Which got me thinking, why would a charity, send out that much paper, to 1 house. Surely, somebody, somewhere, noticed 5 addresses. And even if a person didn't, a computer must have flagged it up?
Still, I went back to work, and left that in the back of my mind. A while later, I noticed the amount of paperwork involved in actually becoming a donor, you have welcome packs, leaflets, donation forms, friend/family donor forms etc etc etc the list huge. And then it hit me...


Every time you log onto a computer at P.A to start your shift, the server that it's connected to reads "GOWEBLTD" or "GOWEBPNT" something to that affect, my memory doesn't serve me so well, it has been a while. I got out of my seat, walked over to the leaflets that were around the office, and started examining them, i studied the welcome packs, the flyers, you name it, not a single piece of paper, had any information as to where it had been printed. So I thought, strange, but ok.

After a few days, I had some free time to do some research and came across the following.


Penny Appeal was founded by Adeem Younis.


Go Web Print LTD is a company that Adeem Younis is the Director of.


So I dug further....


From looking at the accounts of GOWEBPRINT LTD, the company has several hundreds of thousands of pounds of income each year...I don't know where it comes from, I don't know how, and I'm not an accountant so I can't make much sense of the paperwork that is all available online, however, I believe, that Penny Appeal, is using GOWEBPRINT LTD to fund their own pockets. Hence the need for mass printing of every piece of benign document they can think of. How it works it quite simple...


1. You donate to P.A..
2. They take your details along with your donation.
3. You receive a receipt, a letter, a welcome pack etc which costs say £5 to print. & mail.
4. That print work comes from GOWEBPRINT LTD.
5. GOWEBPRINT LTD [a private company which is owned by Adeem Younis] charges P.A £15 . of YOUR money to send that paperwork to you, but also to take a nice profit.
6. Go to step 1 and repeat.

It's a good con, it's clever, it's smart, and there's a number of charities involved in the action hence why they all LOVE paper. Isn't it amazing, they're helping all these communities out there, but they're smashing the crap out of the environment?


For example, Osman Gondal of the "in-touch foundation" based in Bradford, set up his Charity with the same intentions. He has a background in print work, and was looking for a new method of using his print business, and low and behold along comes a charity which provides food to the homeless.


With Ramadaan here, who, what, when and how you donate is your choice. I just thought you should know this info before you part with your hard earned cash to line somebody else's pockets.


Oh, and once they respond to this post, with a press release or whatever, I'm not a "disgruntled ex employee" which is what they'll probably say, I'm not somebody that's "out to get them", I couldn't care about any of them to be honest. I just think the public deserves to know the truth.


Yours Truly
John Dillinger


https://www.facebook.com/hidayah.foundationuk/posts/458958151192080

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[Abz2000]

Re: "the profit is in the paper"

It's good to know how charities are run, and essential that people be well informed in order to be able to decide where they want their money spent based on solid and transparent accounting and accountability.

One thing i'd add though is that paperwork is used to encourage donations, and paperwork might be contracted out to for profit companies if the charity isn't in possession or about to be in possession of a printing department.
The chairperson of a charity might decide to take that profit which needs to be paid - themself as a way of lawful sustenance by keeping the charity clean - this should not be excessive, and should be declared. If the person/s is/are honest and sincere, he/she/they would do good make this kind of setup clear to the public.

Regarding the posting of letters to donors, there is no secrecy involved and this is completely normal - since each donor has an account. You can request that software edits be made in order to have everyone who opts in nominate a head of household to whom letters are addressed.

If it's a scam and there are hundreds of letters going out to addresses or to the same address by purposeful design or knowledge of the trustees - then it's haraam.

I recall when i was an early teen and sun life insurance was sending free parker pens and other items with info pack requests and i found that as long as you didn't use the same name, you could order as many info packs as you desired to the same address. i may simply have been a user account based issue that computers were missing - or it may have been a purposefully designed manipulation that was sending me loads of parker pens under obscene names that i'd disguised as foreign names.
Astaghfirullah. (Even though confession to people of individual sins is not required, and i have changed that mindset - i mentioned it simply for eductional purposes).