About four months ago, my mother in-law decided that she needed to buy a new car. Knowing her current one (at the time) was on the verge of death she decided it would be a great idea to just look around, get an auto-loan and then go from there.
One of the first questions she asked herself is ‘What to do with the old one?’ because in the community we live in you’re limited a certain number of cars per household. The streets are narrow and there are usually only two and three car driveways available. She decided to make a car donation to a random charity she found through a Google search. The charity she chose was for children and there are a lot of them looking for car donations because they’ll take the car, maybe fix it up a little then sell it so the proceeds go to buying things for those in need. I’m not quite sure how they all work, I just know that the one that we personally dealt with didn’t give her what she was told she would be receiving.
The reason she decided to donate this to this company was not only the pretty “Donate My Car and get something free” banner written on their website, but it was for the sake of helping out kids. She’s an only child, her son is an only child and she extends her family to two very small dogs that she treats as her children. So naturally, she wants to help children and animals before she even looks in any other direction.
All she got out of them was a voucher saying thanks for your title and that’s just about it. She could have easily donated her car to the local fire department and had a tax-write off but she decided to put someone else’s needs before her own. She was told that she was going to be given a gift certificate to some hotel in Atlantic City or just some over-night vacation in general. She received nothing.
In conclusion, while car donations are always a nice gesture, make sure you read the fine print.