About a month or so ago I posted a package of football shirts to the address given in the 'Africa' thread at the top of our page..I have had no conformation from anyone that they have been received despite leaving my personal email address for this purpose. More to the point, I have now recently received requests for to send cash donations, with attached sob stories, sent to my private message box on this site from one of the main posters from the Africa thread (I think I should withhold the username for now). Having discussed this with some of our moderators, we felt it prudent that a message needed to be made public to find out if this is an isolated case, or if other contributers are also receiving requests to send cash donations. We also agreed that if anyone is contemplating sending shirts or cash donations to the address given in the African thread, to hold back until their validity can be checked out.. I sincerely hope that my insticts that are telling me there is something wrong going on here turn out to be wrong.
Just to clarify. We are asking anyone who is thinking of sending anything over to hang fire for now, till we speak and dig and verify that the people at the other end are genuine. There is of course, a great chance that it is all innocent, and that the lads in Kenya are just hoping that all your generosity can help them in other ways, but i strongly urge that nobody even contemplates sending cash. If anyone else has recieved a similar mail to RAW, please PM a moderator, rather than putting it on this thread, it's important we handle this correctly, i'm sure we all agree on that. Best to assume that there isn't a problem for now, but also to urr on the side of caution, we wanna make sure any donations are benefitting the masses.
I think its important not to go down the," Gyan puts in transfer request route" and find anyone guilty before its checked out. At the same time it would be wrong and irrisponsible not to warn everyone.
Sad if true but unfortunately as I'm sure your all aware this exact same thing happens on many other 'sites'.
Having spent a good deal of my own time, effort and money sending shirts to the 'shirts for Africa' address given, I will be very disappointed if it turns out to be bogus. I did not write this thread without giving it a lot of thought, and if anyone else could view the requests I have received in my private message box, i'm sure they would also be very suspicious.. I really hope that I'm wrong here, but it is surely better to be safe than sorry...I had every intention of sending more shirts in the near future, but I want to find out if they are the 'real thing' first.
Just a suggestion here, and this may be just water off a ducks back and nothing to worry about at all. I know BB sent an email to the club asking if they would like to get involved, and as far as i am aware, they never replied, but why not send another, but this time to SAFC and that club in Ghana which we are associated with, with the idea of sending older shirts to Africa (not just Ghana) to help underprivilaged kids/teams in that continent. This may give the idea to the Ghana club who may give SAFC a kick up the ass and say get on it (it might not but it cant hurt) and then if they agree to it, then its all official and above board. or maybe even better http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akim_Oda_Sunderland_Football_Academy,_Ghana actually dont know if i would trust this either lol here you go http://www.asantekotokofc.org/kotoko/contact.htm
Sent some kids tops about the same time mate not heard nothing about if they have or have not arrived. Haven't had the sob story e-mails but, rarely check my inbox on here. I'm sure it's just a blip as the first few shirts I sent were received about 3 weeks from when I sent them, looks like the pirates have intercepted them.
I've worked in African Oil Industry for the past 20 years, never been to Kenya mind, but most or ALL of the countries i've been to have corrupt officials. Not saying this is the case in this instance but my guess would be that your Parcel has been intercepted by Customs Officials who were only too glad to help themselves and decided to take it one step further armed with your information. It's common practice out here, trust me. I would urge everyone to stop sending parcels of any description to the lads out there, they will NOT recieve them. If my hunch is correct, any further parcels will dissappear in the same manner. My advice would be to contact the guys out there to try and find out just how many parcels they have recieved as opposed to how many have been sent, i'd be very surprised if it were more than 50%. Sorry for the sceptisism but i've been out here too long and know what it's really like. I'd love to be proved wrong as it's a cracking cause and i hope that somehow we can resolve this issue and continue to give our support but i fear this link has been compromised and MUST stop. MrRAW, change your email address, they won't stop asking mate and by now it will be getting passed around all over the place.
Must confess after eading the SAFC Africa thread its rings alarm bells. Starts thanking for shirts, then could do with more shirts, none seem to arrive and now lost sponser for coach to away games. Its not my cause and its sad for all who put effort in but if it was mine I would pull it on a better safe than sorry basis.
Cheers Welder. To follow this up, can any lads who have sent parcels PM a mod, and we will try and contact Keroche and see how many they have recieved, be a good starting point to cross reference this info
