Where to start on the WTBTS and money? I will tell you the situation that sticks with me the most. When I lived in south carolina, in a rural area where there were a lot of very poor people, I was one of them at the time, there was a dear elderly sister, sweet as she could be, who lost her place to live. I don't know if I ever knew why that happened. Anyway, her relatives were poor and were trying to figure out what to do about helping her. They were not JWs, but they were nice people, I met them a few times when I picked up this sister to take her places. I asked the elders if we could have a letter read to the congregation informing the congregation of the sister's plight and ask for contributions to help her get a place to live. Her family had land and we could have worked something out with a little cash. The answer was, "No, JWs are not a social relief agency, we don't do social relief work". That same Sunday, they did read a special letter asking for contributions, contributions to buy the visiting CO a new SUV, for $45,000. All the congregations in the circuit were to pitch in a % based on the number of congregations, then each family head was given his quota. It wasn't really voluntary.

I was very upset about this. Because the CO had a perfectly good SUV which could have serviced his needs for several more years. And that SUV was not traded in on the new one. I'm guessing the CO sold it and pocketed the money.

I worked with the sister's family and we scratched together enough money to buy a Handi House, a kind of metal storage building, and we put insulation and drywall and windows in it, so it was almost like a real place to live. The sister was very happy, but I just thought how much more could have been done. I forced several brothers to help me improve the Handi House so it could be a residence. By forced I mean I showed up at their house and said "you are coming with me or we are going to scrap". I am 6' tall and at the time was 225 lbs and muscular. LOL All of these brothers showed up at every "quick build" and I said "If anyone ever needed a quick build crew it is this sister".

I did leave out one money making scam the WTBTS has. I don't know if they still do this. I know the civic auditorium in our little town would no longer rent their facility to the WTBTS for assembly days, or conventions, or anything else because they had a rule. An event was not required to charge for parking, but if they did charge for parking they had to give a % of the parking proceeds to the civic auditorium. Remember when the WTBTS introduced the "new arrangement" of requiring everyone to buy parking tickets prior to a convention or assembly? And there was no way to get the tickets at the convention/assembly? And if you tried to park anyway, the 'parking thugs' would get ugly with you? Well, the city found out about this scam and told the WTBTS that they owed the parking % and the WTBTS tried to hide behind some hogwash that they didn't charge for parking...blah blah blah. So, the city told the WTBTS that they could not rent the facility again until they paid all the parking money they owed for all the events they had run this scam on. So, we were forced to go to assemblies many miles away. The WTBTS told us it was religious persecution of course. I found out about this because I am a singer and I was performing at the civic auditorium and asked the facility manger why he hated JWs. He said "huh?". And he told me the real story.

I'm not sure if the WTBTS still pulls this scam or not. I did learn over the years that anytime you saw the words "new arrangement" you could bet your last dollar that someone was getting screwed by the WTBTS.