Temple donations -> Minimum payment?

I’m just wondering since when some temples started to collect funds based on ‘minimum payment requirement’ and are we really confined to that? What if I want to donate RM2 instead of RM10?

I was in a shop a few weeks back when this Indian dude approached me with his koyak jeans and a pouch bag on his shoulder. I knew, that he would either proclaim himself by saying that he’s from a temple or from an orphanage house. As expected, he said he came all the way from an XXYYZZ (Sorry I can’t remember the name) temple located far away from my place. I thought to myself, why would a person travel all the way long from a very far place just for the sake of collecting some funds in another town? He could have done that somewhere nearby his ‘temple’! Or is it a gimmick in tricking us to believe that “these temples do exist”, even if they don’t exist in reality?

Then, he told me that I HAVE TO donate RM5 as that is the amount he wants me to donate. My bad, I did not asked him why. I scrutinized my wallet and could not find any smaller change. However, I managed to fork out RM3 from my wallet and gave it to him saying that I don’t have any small change. To my surprise, he refused. He insisted that he wants (or maybe ‘needs’) RM5 and I was like WTF!. I told him furiously either you take this money or GTFO go away! Rapidly, he took his so-called receipt book, wrote the amount, took that RM3 of mine and he walked off.

I noticed that the receipt barely contains any other information about the temple whereabouts and address besides having the name SRI MAHA something something. You see, I’m not the kind of guy who would donate anything to anyone under the name of ‘temple donations’ as I knew some assholes would pretend to be a temple representative and forcing us to donate in order to ‘help their temple and god’. We should help the god, or god should be helping us?

Let’s put it this way. Assuming that I ordered a local chinese tauke to print a receipt book under a fake temple name with a fake address, let’s say KUIL SRI MAHA MARIAMMAN which is purportedly located in Klang. The very following day I would be traveling to Rawang (Klang –> Rawang) and start to collect some donations there. Within a day, I could earn roughly about RM400 or even more than that! Do you think people in Rawang would bother to ask about the whereabouts of this temple? Or do you think anyone would even bother to ask the contact number of the temple for verification purpose? We, Indians, whenever we heard the term ‘temple donations’, would either consider not to donate anything or donate and get lost.

Since many would resort to donate and get lost, hence it would be easier for those culprits in conning us by showing some temple pictures, saying some temple names, interjecting the power of god and etc etc. Dear friends, don’t be fooled with these conmen. Not all of them are conmen but do remember, there would always be a bad apple amongst some good apples. As for my case, I do not know whether I have been conned or what but henceforth, I shall be taking a better precaution and so do you!

*I am not teaching people on how to con under the name of ‘temple donations’ but was explaining the fact, the fact that we are being conned at times. Period.