Preying on Vets

This morning I went to Walmart to pick up some last minute things for my son's birthday. It is rainy and pretty chilly, but there were 4 men with little tables sat up outside the front entrances. Their tables were each wrapped in banners that said Help our Veteran's. The banners were in the digital camo and did not have any organization's name on any of them.

I just got a really bad feeling about them, as soon as I saw them. I may be paranoid, but I know that there are many people out there that are profiting off of veteran's and their stories who shouldn't be. I went up to one of the tables and asked them what organization they were with. He told me The Purple Heart Hospitalized Veteran's and that they were collecting money to send care packages to hospitalized veteran's.

I have never heard of this organization before, and their entire set up looked a little fishy to me. I'm pretty active within several wounded warrior groups, and I have NEVER heard of this organization, or even one anything similar to this. I was really bothered by this. I wasn't sure what to do, but decided I needed to say something. So, as I was checking out back in electronics, I asked the cashier if Walmart checks the legitimacy of the people asking for donations on their properties. She looked at me rather funny so I explained myself and my question to her. She said it was a great question, and asked if I would wait for a minute so she could have a manager come back. I then asked the manager my same question and got the same confused look. So, again, I explained. She said that they are SUPPOSED to have proof of their legitimacy when they apply to stand out there. She was going to check for me though to make sure they had actually gotten that proof from this group. I didn't wait around to make sure, I knew it wouldn't do any good. I just really wanted to make sure that it was legit.

I'm still really bothered by this. I know there are many organizations out there working for vets that I do not know about. However, I think it looked really odd that their organizations name wasn't on the banner or anywhere. They had no information to pass out. There were no pictures or samples of the care packages they send. They did however have money bags to collect their money in and a credit card machine so they could even take donations that way.

Am I crazy to question this?? Does this sound legit to anyone else?? Is there anything else I could have done to check them out or prevent them from doing it if they are a scam? Any advice here to settle my uneasiness would be greatly appreciated.

Even Now.......Gina