> They've come under some criticism for apparent lack of transparency around how donations are spent, and for allegedly having very high overheads.
They are also borderline abusive with how often they will call you and harass you if you miss an opportunity to donate blood. They apparently have unlimited funds to pay phone operators.
Not borderline abusive, they are straight up abusive with their phone calls. If you ever decide to give blood do NOT give them your phone number.
I tried to give blood ONCE and found out that I was ineligible. For the next five years or so they harassed me non stop about giving blood. I told them I was ineligible they just said "ok" but I still got phonecalls. I asked them to stop calling me but they didn't stop. After a while I would just hang up on them. I got the phonecalls to stop by emailing the ombudsman. Never got a reply but the phonecalls stopped shortly after.
I recently decided to stop giving them blood, however, because I was actually reading the fine print for once, and apparently they send your blood off for use in research at universities and you cannot opt out.
I am giving you my blood to help people not for your side channel research efforts. If a university wants to use my blood for testing and research they may do so at my discretion, not in spite of it. Also, I would like to be able to review the privacy policy of that particular university and know if they have any attempts to turn a profit with a pharmaceutical company. Again, blood is very sensitive and very personally identifiable. I want the least amount of people possible (who don't actually need it to survive) to have it. I have no idea what the future holds in terms of genetic testing, genetic discrimination, and most importantly, how this particular research university handles data storage and information about my blood and I.
Anyways, long story short, I will be using my local blood organizations from now on, or just going directly to the hospital to donate.
I gave blood with them a lot during college, as did my brothers. Then we moved out. For probably about eight years after I moved across the country they would still call my parents' house. "Hi, is Luca there?" "No, he doesn't live here anymore. Please remove him from your list." "Okay."
Thirty seconds later, the phone would ring again. "Hi, is Duncan there?" Repeat a third time for my other brother. For years. I think it's stopped now, so it didn't quite last a decade (though maybe it did for my older brother).
The Blood Center of Central Texas, on the other hand, stopped calling the first time I asked them to. Once they stopped, I resumed donating regularly.
All that aside, I highly recommend donating blood regularly--it has health benefits and is a pretty effective form of charity.
How is this possible? I simply asked to never be called again, and was called perhaps once more where I reiterated this. Then I was simply never called again.
I don't know how it's possible for them to disregard my pleas to remove me from their lists. I even told them I have traveled to SE Asia and been exposed to locations with malaria (true story), but ultimately had to resort to blocking their dozens of local and 800 numbers on my phone.
Yep, I don't know if they're straight up spoofing caller IDs (I can't imagine they could actually get away with that), or if they actually own numbers in every exchange so they can make local calls, but it's incredibly annoying...
They changed my number in their database promptly and effectively when I asked them to during a blood donation.
I redirected it to Google Voice and configured their numbers to go straight to voicemail. I figure if they have anything important to tell me, they'll leave a message.
They are also borderline abusive with how often they will call you and harass you if you miss an opportunity to donate blood. They apparently have unlimited funds to pay phone operators.