Sunday, January 16, 2011

Ill. ministry denies duping local family - LancasterOnline.com News

Interesting story from Pennsylvania concerning a Belvidere minister and a would-be recipient complaining.

A Lancaster Township family with two special-needs adult children believes they were duped by owners of an Illinois ministry that was set to help them. But the ministry says it was just a set of unfortunate circumstances.

Videl Seymour, who owns Keys 2 Heaven Ministry in Belvidere, Ill., with his wife, Dawn Shondel, said in a telephone interview Monday that their plan to help give kids across the country Christmas gifts backfired.

"We got over 800 to 1,000 responses on our personal website," Seymour said, plus a number of responses from Wish Upon a Hero
Read more: http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/329590#ixzz1BB202kna

Read more: http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/329590#ixzz1BB1IP0qd

went to UPS to weigh them. We thought they'd give us a discount," Seymour said. "But with the average weight with three to four gifts for each family, the lowest price would be $13. So it would cost $500 to $600 to ship them off. At the time, me and my wife only had $200 to ship. If I would have had $500 to $600, I would have spent it (on the shipping), but I didn't have it."

So they went to Wish Upon a Hero, asking for help with shipping.

"We got no response," he said, so they went back to the chain store to return the gifts so they could purchase gift cards, which would cost less in shipping.

But the chain store's return policy would not allow them to return the gifts, Seymour said.

"We had no alternative," Seymour said. Instead of shipping to those who had been promised the gifts across the country, "we gave them to a local ministry, His Glory Mission. We feel bad not to be able to follow through with the shipping, but our hands were tied."

Read more: http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/329590#ixzz1BB2MGojB

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