Chapters/Indigo radicalized me.

For the uninitiated, this is a chain of bookstores across Canada. I remember them as being one of the first places where people would ask you to donate a dollar at checkout. Their charity was framed as helping put books in schools, a cause that at first glance you can’t really find fault with.

Well, turns out their program only allowed for the purchase of books at full retail price from themselves. So the ‘charity’ was literally buying books at full markup and profits. Supposedly it was also quite difficult for schools to actually qualify as well.

So when they asked you to ‘donate a dollar’ they were really just asking for an extra dollar for themselves.