To scam or not to scam?

[danitapgh]

Tonight, a woman came to my door and gave me her pitch. She said that she was an R.N. at Children's Hospital. She was raising money as part of a walkathon for SIDS. The doctor that she worked with was working on a cure for SIDS. He has a patent for a sleep apnea drug. I asked her a few questions. She was able to produce the names of different medicines, and she even spelled one for me (phenylthiazines) which she said that her hospital was trying to get Bayer to pull from one of its children's fever reducers.. Also, she claimed that she came to my house last year, and I had donated money. This part I distinctly do not remember. Her name was Dawn. I tried to clarify, perhaps it was one of my neighbor's houses that she had visited and was confused. I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt on the past sponsorship because maybe either I had forgotten or she was confused. So, then she asked me which level of money I wanted to give. Gold ($36), Silver ($24), or Bronze ($12). I said, ok, I'll do the Bronze (since that seemed like a lower risk option). Let me go get my check book. At this, she hesitated and insisted she needed a cash donation because previous donors had written bad checks which bounced. I said, ok. give me the address, and I'll look into some other way of sending in my donation. She hesitated again. She told me she needed the cash tonight so that she would have it by the time the walkathon was over. So, I decided I had better just avoid the whole situation, and I gracefully declined to donate anything.

Anyway. This smelled distinctly like a scam to me. The part about only accepting cash seemed odd to me. Up until the end, her execution was pretty good, though. Of course, maybe I'm just too gullible, and other people wouldn't have even answered the door.