Hello Swarm Single Moms
Every once in a while I like to remind my readers the reason why I am putting together funding for a resource center for single moms. I recently related the story of a mom who was renting a house with a potential mold problem. Today I share the story of my auto insurance agent. A single mom to one young son.
Her name is Gabrielle and this is a true story.
About two months ago I went to pay my auto insurance and to get some information about insuring a storage unit that I will be using to house SWARM donations. As she and I discussed the fees and coverage she told me she thought creating SWARM was a great idea and she might have some gently used items to donate. She told me about her son and how he had some toys that he rarely, if ever, played with. She thought about donating them. I let her know that when I had secured the storage unit, in about three months, I would contact her about the donations.
Today, about two months later I was back paying my insurance and touching base with her about the quotes I had gotten for the storage unit. Somehow we got onto the subjects of money orders and I told her how we had just gotten a directive at my work that we won't be accepting any money orders because of a theft that happened at a recently closed bank on the west coast. That information triggered a story from Gabrielle which is the inspiration for this post.
Last month, Gabrielle was going on vacation and had given her sister some money for rent. She asked her sister to purchase a money order, place it in an envelope, then put it into the apartment complex's mail box. Gabrielle's sister did as she was asked and placed the envelope with the money order into the rental office post box. When Gabrielle returned from her trip, she found an envelope from the apartment complex in her mail box and, thinking it was the receipt, set it aside. A couple of days later, she opened the envelope and discovered that the office never received her rent. She immediately phoned them to find out what happened. According to them, they never received the payment and because they did not get the rent, they were giving her two weeks to pay her rent or move out. Panicking, she phoned the company that she purchased the money order from and, having saved the receipt was able to trace the cashed money order to a bank (BBT) in North Carolina.
The money order company was able, for a fee, to send Gabrielle a copy of the cashed money order, which she could tell, had been verified as to authenticity by notes the bank wrote on the money order.
Long story short. Gabrielle was out $950.00, plus she needed to come up with another $950.00 to replace the money that the apartment complex never received and $950.00 for the next month's rent, which was now just two weeks away. I sympathized with her and asked her how she was able to come up with the money. She said it was a very difficult time, she was totally stressed and because of the missing rent money order, all her savings are now gone!
How many single moms do you know would have that kind of money set aside for an incident such as the above story?
This is why I want a resource center and the reason why my attorney said I should have small loans as part of the service. I agree. Even more so now. I can not say I would have had, at certain times in my single mom-hood, the money to cover such a disaster. I applaud Gabrielle for her money saving skills and the prudence and wisdom to save for the proverbial rainy day!!
*** Update ***
Apparently, the money order was stolen from the mail box at the apartment complex. It was part of a theft ring that was occurring in many areas and the thieves were able to get banks and other cash checking businesses to cash the money orders they were stealing.
Gabrielle is still using money orders because the apartment complex will not take personal checks, but she is handing it to them and waiting on a receipt.
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