(850) 564-5849

I got a call from Tennessee Children and Family Services at 850-564-5165 and I told the woman on the phone that I don't make commitments to give money over the phone, but if she had so****ing to send me I would take a look at it. A few days later I received a letter in the mail. I tried to look up the organization on two different nonprofit watchdog sites, and if they had been in existence for 20 years as they claim, these sites would have had so****ing about them, but there was nothing on them whatsoever.The caller claimed that nearly every dollar I contributed would go to children IN MY AREA, yet when I looked up their address it was a UPS store (118 N PETERS RD, KNOXVILLE, TN, 37923). While I understand that for economies of scale it's a good idea to have a single fundraising operation for several state organizations, they would still need staff in the areas they serve and would have no need of the UPS store address.Whitney, it is possible for a fake charity to hire people and treat their employees well, as well as feeding them a lot of bull **** about the legitimacy of the operation. In fact, that would be necessary because you could not sell it unless you believed it.

I understand why you might think this is not legit, and i do not blame you for going the extra mile to check this out. Although, I was a volenteer for this exact charity and may I add that it IS legit. I even worked at the Milton, Florida residence and I can promise we did nothing but call and ask if people would like to be apart of the charity. We never actually saw any of the money that was donated. It all goes directly to the main office in Indiana. The reason it's located in Milton Florida is because since it is a non-profit charity they try their best to get every single dollar that is donated to go directly to the children in need. It is cheaper and makes more sense to only have one or two offices verses a bunch.

I received a phone call from a volunteer from Indiana Children Services.  The number on caller ID was 850-564-5849 out of Florida.  I did some more research after I found this web page.  I searched on http://www.melissadata.com/lookups/np.asp using the tax ID # from their web site  No such ID found.  I then tried a google search on the tax ID #.  it came up with two web site entries:indianachildrenservices.com and ohiochildrenservices.comSo I did a whois lookup on the domain.  It is registered through godaddy.com.  Went to godaddy.com to check on who owns the websites.  The following information is on the above two mentioned sitesAll the following web domains registered by the same person:alabamachildrenservices.com (Mailing address on website a UPS Store)arkansaschildrenservices.com (not working at this time)floridachildrenservices.com (Mailing address is the address of domain registrant)indianachildrenservices.com (Mailing address on website a UPS Store)mississippichildrenservices.com (Mailing address on website a UPS Store)ohiochildrenservices.com (Mailing address on website a UPS Store)tennesseechildrenservices.com (Mailing address on website a UPS Store)I would think twice before sending them money.  My guess is that the states listed above have laws that say a charity only has to have a mailing address to operate in said state.  I bet that all mail going to these locations is actually being forwarded to Milton, Florida, the address of the registrant of all these sites.