Don’t leave home without it!

Public policy specialist John Creath, while helping out member services yesterday, reported an unusual call about a member. Not from a doctor or hospital, but from a toy store.

A clerk from a toy store in California called and reported that she found a customer’s wallet in their department store and she was trying to return it to its rightful owner. The only phone number listed among the contents of this wallet was, you guessed it, Samaritan Ministries’ on the back of a Samaritan membership card. My first inclination was to be skeptical because it just sounded too outlandish, but after the clerk provided a name and address for the wallet’s owner, I cross-checked them in GH. I decided that it would probably be best for me to take down the store’s phone number and call the wallet’s owner myself and see if they were in fact missing a wallet.
Sure enough, after calling the member and explaining that I wasn’t really calling about their subscription but was trying to facilitate a reunion between him and his wallet, the owner quickly figured out what had happened and was very appreciative that we didn’t just write it off as a prank call.
Moral of the story: always carry your Samaritan membership card in your wallet/pocketbook!