Saturday, May 2, 2009

ALERT for Homeschool Group Leaders

We were made aware of this new alert post and thought it was important to pass on to you. ~ Denise & Kristen

Dear Group Leaders,

We want to bring your attention to a situation that occurred recently so you can be on your alert for any suspicious calls. Yesterday, the Home School Foundation (the charitable branch of HSLDA) received a call from an HSLDA member family who had received a suspicious call from a"Dr. Carey."

Dr. Carey claimed to be a homeschooling mother of 12 gathering information for research work on behalf of the Home School Foundation. She told the family, in this case, the leader of a local homeschool group, that their group had been nominated by members in their group for a compassion grant from HSF.

To qualify for the grant, Dr. Carey explained she needed to ask some questions. These questions started with general queries about homeschooling and quickly led to questions concerning the family's disciplinary techniques. The family then called HSF and confirmed that there isn't a Dr. Carey on the payroll with either HSF or HSLDA.

While the Home School Foundation does offer compassion grants to homeschooling families in need, neither HSLDA nor the Home School Foundation would ever call their members and question them on the discipline of their children.

Also, if you have caller ID, all calls from HSLDA read: (540) 338-5600 while all HSF calls read: (540) 338-8688. This caller showed up as a restricted or blocked number. HSLDA does not block our number from your phone.

If any families in your group receive any calls from someone claiming to be from HSLDA or HSF and the caller's number is either blocked or doesn't match either of the numbers above, please gather as much information as possible and let us know. And let's pray that this person will not be successful in deceiving any HSLDA members or other homeschooling families.

Please contact Abigail Dunlap at DiscountGroups@ ...if you have any further questions or need to report a suspicious call.

Regards,
Abigail Dunlap
Discount Group Program Administrator
Home School Legal Defense Association (540) 338-5600

2 comments:

Carol Topp, CPA said...

This was very interesting. Thanks for posting it. I posted it to my blog.
I'd be suspicious of anyone claiming my group was awarded a grant for which we never applied. Grants are very competitive and foundations don't just hand them out unsolicited.

Carol Topp, CPA

Carol Topp, CPA said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.