just got a call from 8003019772 i asked who was calling and theysaid no message andhungup it pissed me off

Have been getting calls from 866-873-8907; every day for last one week. They claim to be Navy Veterans Association. I checked online, and did not find any such organization.

cjackson... I too got one of these letters and started making some calls... the 1888 number gets you a message from US Cellular saying that that is not a working number.  My caller id shows all their calls coming from a Southfield MIi number...248-351-5662. The local MI number gets you a recording saying that they are the US Navy Veterans Association and if you have any questions about their organization.  You can leave your name and number and they will call you back.

The whole situation just doesn't sit right to me... my husband allegedly agreed to a pledge... I never take solicitations over the phone.  Now my husband doesn't remember any pledge and they are calling on a daily basis... I won't be sending any money.

Legit organization... I don't know but I won't get involved....prefer to do business and donations locally.

Nothing wrong with these folks at all. Very polite telemarketing call. They seem to have a lot of enemies, though, probably because their foreign policy advocacy appears very hawkish.

Received pledge letter.
US Navy Veterans Association
PMB 303-CONTRIB PROCESS CTR-OK
334 E. KEARNEY
SPRINGFIELD, MO 65803-3018

OKLAHOMA CHAPTER 1-888-298-2431

Stated your donation is tax deductible. Is this a scam address?

They just called me...I made a mistake & I said they could send me a form so I could make a donation but now I obviously won't.  And I assume they will call & call when the money doesn't appear.  What should I do?  I filed a complaint with the FCC, since I am supposedly on the do not call list.  Do they actually stop calling if you ask them to?
Any advice?

HERE'S WHAT THEIR HAWAII CHAPTER SAYS ABOUT ALL YOUR COMMENTS ON NAVY.VETS.ORG:

The following public service announcement of the Hawai'i Chapter is published here in 2009. We think we'll leave it up here for awhile:

The Hawai'i Chapter and its National Association, regardless of the outright misrepresentations of fact, unheard of anywhere else in America, printed in the e-version of the Honolulu Star Bulletin in 2009, are proud to be a $10,000 grantor to the USS Arizona Memorial Memorial at Pearl:

USS Arizona



New York Harbor, 1916


ON DECEMBER 7, 1941, A DATE THAT WILL FOREVER LIVE IN INFAMY, NAVAL AND AIR FORCES OF THE JAPANESE EMPIRE SUDDENLY AND DELIBERATELY ATTACKED THE U.S. PACIFIC FLEET AT PEARL HARBOR. THE SHIPS BOMBED AT PEARL THAT MORNING, FROM THEIR POSITIONS WEST TO EAST, CLOCKWISE AROUND FORD ISLAND, WERE: the MEDUSA, the CURTISS, the TANGIER, the UTAH, the RALEIGH, the DETROIT, the DOBBIN, the WHITNEY, the NEVADA, the ARIZONA, the VESTAL, the TENNESSEE, the WEST VIRGINIA, the MARYLAND, (the Maryland and West Virginia were "Colorado" class battleships) the OKLAHOMA, the NEOSHO, the CALIFORNIA, the NEW ORLEANS, and the SAN FRANCISCO.



1,177 men died on board  the U.S.S. ARIZONA (BB39) alone, including ADM David C. Kidd, Battleship Division 1 Commander, ARIZONA's Commanding Officer, CAPT Franklin Van Valkenburgh, and the entire USS Arizona band, at their stations passing ammunition under Turret Gun 1.

400 Sailors were trapped inside the ARIZONA's hull as she sank. Reliable sources indicate that that there was probably enough air to last the last Sailor left alive until approximately Christmas Eve of that year.



The ARIZONA, an oil burning ship, burned for two solid days and the sunken ARIZONA is still discharging oil today, "tears" as we say in the Navy. The story goes that the tears will stop when the last survivor of the ARIZONA is laid to rest.

and, as a VA recognized Veterans Service Organization, a $10,000 grantor to the VA's Punchbowl Cemetery:



and, as a VA recognized Veterans Service Organization, a $2,500 grantor to the  Yukio Okutsu State of Hawai'i Veterans Home in Hilo, Hawai'i's first and only, as of 2009, state veterans' home,

as the National Association is proud, also, to have provided over 5,000 of its care kits to Hawai'i service men and women serving in the CENTCOM theatres of operation in the Global War on Terror since 2002.

In these simple acts of charity and patriotism, just over the period June 1, 2008 - July 15, 2009, this organization spent in Hawai'i and for the people of Hawai'i over 3 1/2 times the net contributions it raised in Hawai'i, and those figures do not even include either the educational expenses of the organization as to the struggles of our Armed Forces members from Hawai'i, or from the rest of the United States (since those struggles are the same) in the War on Terror, or the volunteer services of our Hawai'i Chapter members, all without any charge whatsoever, in counselling our people here in Hawai'i as to their veterans' rights and benefits, in their participation in patriotic events here, and in comforting the widows, widowers, children and orphans of deceased Hawai'i veterans in the time of their bereavement.

To give the people of Hawai'i a fuller and fairer account, as opposed to the scurrilous and false insinuations and statements made in both the Star Bulletin story and in Mr. Jones' civil complaint (See, below), of our fiscal situation and where money raised in Hawai'i goes: the combined organizations (the State Chapter and the National Association) raised approximately $122,000 total gross income during the twelve month period June 1, 2008 - May 31, 2009 statewide.(All told, for non-profits in Hawai'i, for the last year available, 2001, local residents donated about $430 million to charitiies. (Source; Honolulu Advertiser.com, September 16, 2007.) Thus, even using the 8 year old outdated figures as to gross contributions made from Hawai'i, and including our membership dues as "contributions," which they are not, this organization raises in Hawai'i less than .03 of 1% of the total of gross charitable contributions from Hawai'i, yet we were singled out by Mr. Jones for a vicious, false and scurrilous attack by insinuation. Of USNVA's totals, only approximately $25,000 (representing about 1,400 public donors) was raised by professional fundraisers (PFRs). Of the remainder, approximately $72,000 was raised in membership dues, and we do not hear any member; only non-members, non-veterans, politicians or pseudo-politicians with chips on their shoulders, and outsiders, most, if not all, who contributed not a penny  to the cause of this organization, or to any veterans' organization, complaining about where their money went, because they know all of that $72,000 in membership contributions, was spent on staff administration within Hawai'i (about $1,000) and the remainder (about $71,000) on program services of the organization benefitting the Hawai'i beneficiary classes listed in the Mission Statement.  Similarly, a little less than $25,000 (Chapter money) was raised in contributions from members and their families in the all-volunteer drive done by staff-only Chapter members and, of that, a little less than $900 went into administration with the remainder (approximately $24,100) being spent on program services of the organization benefitting the Hawai'i beneficiary classes listed in the Mission Statement.  Of the remaining $25,000 raised by PFRs, approximately $5,625 was paid to the PFRs for the program service component of public education for the drive, and approximately $16,875 was paid to the PFRs for fundraising. Thus, for the combined organizations last year, we spent in Hawai'i, on true Mission Statement activities or benefitting the Hawai'i beneficiary classes listed in the Mission Statement, approximately $103,225 (a whopping 84.6% of total gross receipts from Hawai'i, NOT the 8%, more or less, that both the subject civil complaint and the Star Bulletin  made it sound like), and approximately $18,775 on administration, including fundraising costs. The statement further made in the Star Bulletin article that the organization has no physical presence in Hawai'i, is, flat out, no other word for it, per se misrepresentational, just based on any single fact you wish to pick out, alone, mentioned above, and throughout, this public service message.

Not a single person within the United States Navy Veterans Association or its Hawai'i Chapter has ever made even a penny in compensation, or any inurement, from the activities of the National Association or the Chapter.

The great people of Hawai'i , kama'aina, malahini, haole'ili kea, haole pa'ele, haole lakina and haole'akia, many of whose grandparents and parents paid the ultimate price for love of their entire country on December 7,1941, should pay more attention to the news we report on www.NavyVets.org, than is reported as what passes for news by certain reporters of the Star Bulletin. But if the Star Bulletin (claimed circulation, c. 64,000, [Source: Wikipedia] out of a total population in the State going on 1.5 million) doubts the accuracy of what we're saying anywhere on this website, including in our Chapter section on this page, then they are welcome to bring it on.

We'll repeat this here, as a belief of the 288 war veteran members of the Chapter,  all of whom live in Hawai'i and have physically worked on the administrative and program service activities of the Association here since at least 2003,  emphatically, although it's been said many times before in this country and this State since 1959: what is good with a person or entity needs to be reported equally by the media with what is bad in each and every case, and just because negative stories "sell' and put more dollars in the pockets of the moguls who control most of the American media, including, in the case of the Star Bulletin, foreigners who pull the profit from their newspaper out of Hawai'i, does not mean, in the interest of American fairness, that that is the only thing which should be reported, or reported on. And that is not the da kine way, or the way we do things here.

Nobody within the United States Navy Veterans Association, at either the National Association level, or at the Hawai'i Chapter level here, was given the slightest advance notice for comment, by anybody at the Star Bulletin, that a particular reporter there was about to e-publish a bunch of falsehoods about the organization and its activities here and throughout the United States. That is also, in the opinion of our membership in Hawai'i, while it may be "laid back;" it is not the da kine way. It also constitutes the height of arrogance and unprofessionalism for any newspaper, in their pursuit of profit and money, in these United States.

The misrepresentations we speak of here consisted of two factors in one Star Bulletin story relating to the FTC's sweep "Operation False Charity." In one civil case filed by the Hawaii Attorney General's Office against one charitable professional fundraising company, the Attorney General agreed with the company, prior to the date of the Star Bulletin story, that the case would be settled by judgment and order, in a stipulated settlement, simply, by the company denying any fault or liability for any wrongdoing, agreeing simply to abide by Hawaii law in the future (which everybody has to do anyway), and by paying the Attorney General a paltry $7,000.  Although widely known in advance, none of these facts were brought to the attention of the Hawai'i readership by the Star Bulletin reporter, and the fundraising company was not even asked for a comment. But the Star Bulletin reporter went even further. She took the allegations in the Attorney General's  civil complaint against the company and printed them as fact, when in fact they were largely not, and then came up with a list of innocent charitable organizations the company represented in Hawai'i and, unlike the Advertiser*, she printed that list in her article strongly implying, or outright saying, that those innocent charities were conspiring with the telefundraising company in the non-existent wrongdoing. Again, none of the not-for-profits were even given the usual practice of being asked for a comment prior to publication. The Attorney General of Hawaii has backed up her falsehoods, and false insinuations, as of July, 2009,  by going even further on his propaganda website, and lists all 32 or so innocent clients of this particular fundraiser nationwide, even though many of them never fundraised in Hawaii at all and, as for the ones that did, none of them were even accused of any wrongdoing. This is the filing of lawsuits, the McCarthyesque throwing out of names derogatorily without evidence, and muckraking journalism, all for the sake of politics (to get at charitable organizations with a public educational mission, such as ours, because of the dislike for the content of their speech, by going through their PFRs so as to shut them down in order to prevent the disliked non-profits from speaking, or speaking so much), while at the same time time demanding and orchestrating, arrogant-style, that the accuseds not be given an equal opportunity to respond.

Moreover, this independent professional fundraiser, in engaging in settlement discussions with regard to this case that is being referred to in this article, talked only to FTC regulators representing the states.  As we have alluded to above, none of the states proper gave this particular fundraiser an opportunity to respond to them individually. In those discussions with the FTC regulators, however, this particular fundraiser asked ?Do you have any evidence that any of our represented  non - profit charities, did anything wrong themselves??  The answer was, ?No, we have no such evidence.?  If this is a correct statement, and we believe  it is a correct statement, it flys in the face and contradicts the repeated insinuations of Mr. Jones, both in his civil complaint and on his website page, that all of the charity clients of this particular independent fundraiser did something wrong.





No American donor or prospective donor is required in this country to give to a professional fundraiser or give to a charity through a professional fundraiser.  Each such donor has the absolute opportunity at any time, through his or her own research, to find a charitable organization of their choice, if any,  and to make their donation directly to the charitable organization, thus bypassing any fundraiser or fundraising organization which that charity may use with regard to a particular campaign.  Professional fundraisers are used by charitable organizations in large measure not because the charitable organization is in love with professional fundraising, professional fundraisers or any particular professional fundraiser, and no charitable organization likes to be charged high fees, just like no American client of any lawyer in United States likes to be charged exorbitant fees by those lawyers, and just like no American medical patient or prospective patient in this country likes to be charged exorbitant fees by doctors or by medical insurance companies.  Information as to how to give directly to this organization is contained prominently throughout the length this website, information as to how to give directly to the charitable organization bypassing any and all costs of a particular independent fundraising campaign.  



The primary reason that professional fundraisers are used by particular charitable organizations in the United States is because the charitable organization does not have the resources to be able to reach out to those individuals and prospective donors who are not going to take the time to do their own independent research as to the availability of the charitable organizations that are out there.  The use of the professional fundraisers by those charitable organizations thus is a matter of simply obtaining access to prospective donors that the charitable organization would not otherwise be able to access to carry out their mission, be it public educational or assistance or advocacy or some other mission.   The charitable organizations, in a free market, can expect and do expect to pay a price for that access, that outreach, being provided by the professional fundraisers.  In the opinion of the Hawai?i Chapter that price is high in all cases, and exorbitant in certain cases, but it is a price which is set by the marketplace and the free operation of the laws of supply and demand, and not by government dictate.  

In another administrative action filed, at the same time by the same Attorney General, for example, with wide Attorney General-propaganda-website publicity distribution,  the Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii is named as endorsing a charity which then allegedly had one of its staff members "acting as an agent for a professional fundraiser" imply sort of, maybe "to at least one person" that the State of Hawaii had endorsed the charity.  There was no need to mention the Lieutenant Governor's name in that case; he did nothing wrong and was not accused; and there was no need to mention the names of any of the innocent 32 charities, either, in the former case.

But both cases, at a minimum, show a pattern of the political manipulation of justice with regard to "name-dropping"  in lawsuits by the current Attorney General which stand the ABA's model Standards of Ethical Behavioral for Prosecutors and Attorneys on their head. (ABA model Standards 3-1.1(c), 3-1.3(f), 3-2.8(a), 3-3.9(g), 8-1.1(a) and (c); although these Standards apply to criminal proceedings, all of the allegations brought by the Hawaii Attorney General above involved allegations of criminal misconduct). Cases abound on this subject on the internet on Hawai'i, including references to our judicial system being run by a bunch of hacks going after whoever they determine to be the political enemy of the day, e.g. judges being thrown out of office, (the Lee case), for frivolous accusations.  These people, all of them, are making Hawai'i the new laughingstock of the Union.

In 1892 - 1893, the Star Bulletin told only one side of the story, the side of the so-called "Provisional Government." It never told Queen Lili'uokalani' s side of the story, who refused to accede to



the Provisional Government, or the story of the Hawai'ian people. Old notions of, as it was called back then, yellow journalism or, as it should properly be called today, jello journalism, apparently run deep at the Star Bulletin.

The Star Bulletin, which has run many stories in its long history based on fact, is currently owned by a Canadian, David Black, of whom people in Hawaii know little, although we do know that Canadian journalistic enterprise is notorious for accepting at whole cloth everything it's socialistic, and oftentimes anti-American, government, says at face value.

"The reporter [for the Honolulu Star Bulletin] wants to give the impression that a question of opinion and conflicting claims is ... fact."

Hawaii Reporter

8/25/2005

www.hawaiireporter.com

(Numerous similar comments about the Star Bulletin's recent reporting abound online. And, while we are on this subject of fairness to all sides of a particular story, the Chapter points out that this website, this Association, this Chapter, in their extensive public educational programs on Navy affairs, Veterans' affairs, and national security affairs carried out both inside and outside Hawai'i since 1998 , normally e-links to the sources for the other party's side of the story. Since we were denied that right in this instant case, it is only fair, in this instance, that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander; in other words, you are free to look up their actual and implied misrepresentations of fact yourself. And, as the Hawai'i Chapter said at the outset of this open educational message, if you want to see through these people  for what they really are, without their verbal artifices, you do not have to look any further.)

*The HonoluluAdvertiser.com advocated, in a so-called "news" article, on September 16, 2007 that the Legislature reimpose certain registration and reporting requirements on all non-profits operating in Hawai'i, singling out in the article "faith-based" organizations, especially, which needed such requirements. The Legislature had repealed such requirements in the mid-1990's. The Legislature, in 2008, re-imposed those requirements effective January 1, 2009. All the actions and newspaper reporting cited above in this article could have, and would have, taken place without those requirements. Given the myriad, duplicative, overlapping and Byzantine written forms and regulations non-profits in the U.S. have to abide by already, at the local, state, federal and private charity watchdog levels, only a regulatory freak would impose, or advocate to be imposed, additional new requirements designed primarily to bring in revenue for government (the National Association had to pay the state a routine administrative registration fee (not a fine) of $500 in 2009, or approximately 1/2 of 1% of what was raised totally from Hawai'i contributors over the past twelve months, paid directly to these same hypocrites who pontificate and pound their chests about non-profits which spend too much on administrative fees). Hawai'i's new law on non-profit registration and reporting should, accordingly, and with due respect to our friends at the Advertiser, be repealed again.

******************************************************
I'm standing with them . They're pretty specific, and most of the folks on this site are not. I'm not a member, and I haven't worked for them. Their story checks out, and a lot of the stuff on this site doe not.

Wow the memo must have gone out in your organization to get on 800 notes today there's a bunch of your messages, or are you just one guy ... in this case whining about a message that's over 2 years old?  Geez!

If your organization doesn't clean up its act then it's doing a DISSERVICE to the people it claims to serve.  Abandonded calls, multiple calls amounting to harassment, you morons are going to wind up in court, you don't have some special kind of immunity from this kind of crap even if you are exploiting a loophole in the DNC law.

Today is a good day for your illegal marketing tactics to die ... did I get that right?

Thank you, Marge for your info. I may not like the fact telemarketers bother me, but they certainly have  a right to speak.

No, I do not work  for this company. And I fail to see how this public website should be reserved for the profanity that substitutes for argument coming out of your mouth. U just made my point. TY.

Well, Jp, i too am a VietNam Vet (SFC, USMC), and I fought in Nam to defend our freedom of speech and our national security  from Charlie, who put wounds in my side, and  who said those rights  should be taken away from everybody, and still do say. I'm a proud member of this organization. And they're doin' a d___n good job, and all you have to do is read or look at their photos to see that.

So, you're wrong: you have heard from us again.
"Today is a good day to die, Marine."

I don't know what etc. means but I do know that the DOD national Resource Directory lists these guys as right up their providing assistance to our troops, and does not list any of your "churches." that's good enough for me.

There are lots of reasons we pay taxes, including for the general welfare of our people. That does not mean that that private charities supplementing that general welfare, many of whom do a better and more efficient job of it than the government has ever done, should be declared illegal, or have ever been declared illegal.

The caller personally is not disconnecting. It's a sales computerized system, called predictive dialing, which disconnects if the answerer does not pick up the phone within a certain specified number of seconds. Many companies sell this software. They cannot be expected to stay on the line forever waiting for u to pick up. What's happening is that u r picking up at the mini-second the software program is cutting u off. the system has been ruled legal by the FTC, with certain exceptions.

nicky, you are obviously a troll. do you work for this company?
nobody comes on 800notes to praise a number that is harrassing them.
only the owners of the numbers do that, they come on here and pose as one of us, and say things like what you just did.
and L-O-FU*CKING-L at "That's denying what it means to be American?" shove it up your patriotic A*SS, you C*UNT.

What are you complaining about? I'd like to know. You didn't even speak to them. I did, and they were very polite, and their website tells their story pretty extensively. Are you saying they shouldn't be permitted to call at all? That's a denial of what I think it menas to be an American.

navyvet.org more annoying than those carpet cleaner call.

Navy vet "care package" beggers....
(Letter written to the "navy "do not call list" in hopes of stopping the maddness !!)

GREEDY and RUDE ! Thats all there is to it. I donated once out of the kindness of my heart at X-mas last year, and now you do nothing but make my life a living hell with 20+ calls a day demanding More money. I have asked "supervisors" over and over again to take me off your call list but GREED is GREED I guess !

Shame on you for giving the Navy (which my father so proudly served in) such a bad name. I ALSO know you sold my name and number (out of greed) to other "so called' charitable organizations. My phone never rang and everything was peacfull till you came along.

Because of the way the NAVY has treated me and my family with such disrespect and total rudeness for my gesture of kindness, I will NEVER EVER donate to ANY human cause again. I hope your real proud of yourselves.

I have had 100's of harassing, demanding, rude calls since Jan 1st 2009 (one week after donating for a care package). I was assured they wouldnt be calling in the future but withen 5 minutes they called back 3 times and hung up on me ! After recieving 7 calls in less than 2 hours a couple weeks ago I've decided it's time for a lawsuit, so I began recording your calls.

YOU have caused me and my family undue stress and hardship for my generosity.

If I recieve any more calls after requesting this behavior to stop, I will be writing to several larger newspapers in the area to let everyone know NOT TO EVER DONATE TO THE NAVY or they to will be faceing the same hell you've put my family through.

I remember when I admired the NAVY. Now you make me sick. Nothing but greedy, nasty rude money grubbers !!

They seem to have an awful lot of thank you letters on their website, not to mention their detailed grants, their 990's on guidestar.org, their VA recognition,  that suggest the exact opposite: that an awful lot of their money goes to the military.

Do you read, or do you just make up stuff? Or are all these people, including the government, just lying about all this, and you're right?

You're nuts, southoc. The name is the US Navy Veterans Association. It is a non-government agency, just like the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Fund, the Association of the US Army, the Navy League, the Air Force Association, etc., etc., etc. are. They are not part of the government and don't claim to be. The IRS recognizes them, with their name, as being 97.5% composed of Navy veterans AND THEY ARE ENTITLED TO USE THE NAME.

You're nuts, Inwood. Any info you want on this group, including how they use their funds, and what percentage goes to their charity purposes (about 80%) can be readily found on their website, www.Navyvets.org., or on www.guidestar.org.

Your BBB info is outdated. The last Annual Information Return filed with the IRS by this group shows that they are audited on a consolidated basis, and that they passed the audit.

Got a call from Navyvet.org asking for money.  Never heard of them.

Bob, this was exactly the information I was looking for. 'Got a call from them this evening and I'd never heard of them. I told them I needed to know more about their organization before I would make any commitments. Sounds like they are doing a good thing, just in an annoying way. The guy I spoke with was very polite, but took "no" for an answer.

Another agency keep calling. How Can we just shut them off?

They called 3 times a day. How can we get rid of these people?

YEAH I HAVE MY OWN BOYFRIEND OVERSEAS THAT I SEND PACKAGES TO, AND THEY STILL WANTED ME TO DONATE...LIKE WE DON'T DONATE OUR LIVES ALREADY

My mother is a senior on limited income.  My dad now deceased was in the Navy 43 yrs.  They play on the Navy Veteran ploy so my mom has agreed to contribute.  I have found the mailings and  try to  catch them before she writes or mails a check.  I have tried  and also mail their their invoice with no check back to them  telling them to quit calling.  she is on a do not cll list.  She has gotton severaqlk other invoices that look very much the same  with different organization names in them.

I received a call from the number 248-351-5662, said hello twice and then a female asking for me, but sounded like she was on something, so I hung up.  Did a little more checking because I did say I would pledge $20.00 to the United States Navy Veterans Association, called their number on the form I'm to send back (1-800-301-9772)and this number has been disconnected.  Go figure another scam!!

Yea,  I tried that and they stop calling immediatly, something about the FHA rules