Longwood Inc Matt Carter auto sales advertising solicitation cars.com Internet

When you go to the Website www.longwoodinc.com you are treated to a screen shot - taken from a completely different and unrelated site, .org - the only similarity is that they share the name - Longwood. 

On the www.LongwoodInc.com  site they write, "Click here to visit us (emphasis added) at www.longwoodinc.org     

By clicking on the hyperlink you are brought to a site which appears to be a charity and which the longwoodinc.com people want you to think is all one in the same.  Do not be fooled.  

If they are not one and the same then it appears that Longwood Industries.com a for-profit business may have an arrangement with Longwood Industries, Inc  (the non-profit). Perhaps they are seperate entities or perhaps they are the same and are trying to take advantage of Non-Profit Loopholes.  Either way, the charity end of things is very inefficient based upon a review of their IRS Form 990.




http://www.longwoodinc.com/autohopper/sellmycaronline.htm  is the actual site for the Longwood Inc advertising people.  Here is part of what they say at that site:

Notice- They now are calling themselves Longwood Industries to create confusionand to make you think that Longwood Inc and Longwood Industries are the same.

"By purchasing an automobile classified listing from Longwood Industries, your vehicle will be listed on 2 of the largest automotive classifieds websites online!"


"The Big Lot! and AutoHopper.com receive thousands of interested car buyers each week looking to purchase a used vehicle. Thousands of private-party sellers have taken advantage of this risk-free way to sell their used vehicle online.

Additionally, proceeds from your listing price are used to help Longwood Industries continue its 25-year effort to assist handicapped and disadvantaged individuals."

Then there is a hyperlink - "Learn more about Longwood Industries"...but when you try to activate that hyperlink you get an error message: http://www.longwoodinc.com/DefView.htm
"The page cannot be found"
HTTP Error 404 - File or directory not found.
Internet Information Services (IIS)

Here is what www.2.guidestar.org (they rate charities) has to say:  
http://www2.guidestar.org/organizations/54-0924145/longwood-industries.aspx
LONGWOOD INDUSTRIES INC
Physical Address:  PO Box 1025  Bedford , VA 24523 
Telephone:  540-586-1430 
Contact (from IRS Form 990): Renee Fisher Executive Director who works 40 hours per week and earns $83,713 + $50,228 of personal compensation for 'Program Service Expenses" and an additional $33,485 for "Management and general expenses benefits.  Five others are listed, work an average of 2 hrs/week with no salary indicated.

EIN: 54-0924145
From IRS Form 990 July 2009 to July 2010 this 'charity' had  $841,570 revenue of which $284,147 was in the form of government grants.  
Spent $511,028 on salaries, and benefits.  Wrote off $59,452 in bad debt;  spent $36,125 on postage;


The previous year this 'charity' had 1,017,459 in revenue and spent $453,404 on salaries and benefits.

I have read through all 4 pages of "complaints", and have only found one person who says they sent money to this company (Longwood).  I have received the call from "Matt" after placing my car on Craigslist also....that is why I was checking here.  It appears that all of the "complaints" are nothing more than reports of getting (an admittedly shady-sounding) solicitation from Longwood.  The one person who sent in money reported contact problems, but it had only been a short period of time, and they had not followed up.  Have these people (Longwood) actually ripped anyone off?, or are they just darned annoying?  For what it's worth, Longwood was not even the first shady contact I got on my car ad....the first one was from a guy who claimed he was on a submarine, and wanted to do a PayPal deal for my car, sight unseen.  Despite the lack of actual ripoff complaints here; Longwood sounds suspicious enough that I will not participate in their business....I hope they are not actually a legit business getting bad press from this site.  Tom