Christmas Time and Charities

I'm all about giving to charity.

Every time I'm at the store and they ask me to donate $1 to whatever charity, I'll always add it to my purchase. Every time I can put my change in a jar for something, I will. I donate hundreds of dollars of clothing, toys, home furnishings etc to Goodwill each year. I try to teach my kids how important it is to give to less fortunate people. When they are older, I love the idea of volunteering at a shelter or ringing a bell.

However....

Not sure how I feel about the Salvation Army offering credit card machines at their bucket stations. I get it. Most people don't carry a lot of cash around anymore. In a world covered in plastic (literally and figuratively), the younger generation doesn't often keep coin or paper on them anymore.

But really?

Does anyone else feel a tad bit nervous that these aren't the most SECURE machines on the planet? They are being operated by volunteers, at a temporary location, with no real way to track down any kind of fraud. I'm going to bet that 99% of the people who volunteer to ring the bell at the holidays are good people. But that 1% who might just find the temptation of getting a hold of an unsuspecting person's credit card number at the height of the spending season might be too much to pass up.

Maybe I'm just cynical but I don't trust FOR. ONE. MINUTE. that those machines are safe. Considering hackers can get into Amazon accounts when THAT company spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year instituting security measures on their website. Heck- the local Joann Fabric store had men POSING as the credit card maintenance guys, installed fake machines that collected hundreds of debit and credit card numbers then sold them off shore.

Not sure I'm gonna trust the machine attached to a bucket with a zip tie. I think I'll stop by the ATM first.

Just saying.