I decided to do something really nice for my friend (another single mom dealing with the same type of financial situation as me) so I took myself to Lowe’s and bought her a washer with some of my tax return. TaDah! Good deed accomplished!
Or so I thought…except that now that Lowe’s has called to confirm delivery, she won’t call them back. I think she was afraid she was being scammed. So THEN I called her office, swore the secretary to secrecy, and had the secretary give her the message. So far, she still hasn’t called the delivery folks.
Any ideas? Am I going to have to come clean and admit that I’m the Phantom Friend? I’m sure she isn’t offended or upset, but she’s diabolical enough to wait me out if she’s really curious to see who’s being nice to her.
I figure I can wait until Thursday afternoon til I have to spill the beans or put the delivery on hold.
Why don’t you want her to know who did this for her?
Because she knows my financial situation as I know hers and she would insist I can’t afford it. And I don’t know…I don’t want her to feel bad.
She needs to know where the washer came from, so she knows it’s not from a stalker, or a potential burglar, or a scam where she’ll get a bill later.
Say something like “It makes me feel good to do this for you”. Or “Someone helped me once, I’m paying it forward, please let me do this.”
If it’d make her feel better, tell her she can do your laundry.
Tell her a white lie. Something like you won it, but since you had a washer and she didn’t, you gave the store her address for delivery.
My folks did something like this when they gifted my cousin a new washer and dryer. 
The best one I’ve heard is “I got it with mileage points.” Because really, nobody understands how those things work, so it’s impossible to argue.
I finally broke down and wrote her a nice card. Hopefully it’ll be a nice surprise.
Maybe she’s just having trouble finding a time when she can get away from work to receive the delivery.
That doesn’t explain her failure to respond to the messages.
If someone called me from claiming to be from Lowe’s or Home Depot and had a washer they wanted to deliver to my house and just needed to arrange a time for delivery I certainly wouldn’t call them back either (and would probably just say “Sorry, I’m not interested” and hang up if I got the call). It just sounds like a junk/scam call to me.
Also, if it were me and a friend told me they ‘won’ it and wanted it to give it to me they’d need to have a convincing story only because if the way they won it sounded scammy (Someone randomly called me and dropped it off at my house…I didn’t even enter a contest!) I’d probably politely decline on the basis of not wanted to get mixed up in a contest that doesn’t feel right to me.
However I like the idea of “I got it with my mileage points” or better yet just say “I got more then I expected from my tax refund and wanted to do something nice” if she argues just say “I tell you what, you can take me out to dinner*”
*adjust that to whatever would be normal for the dynamic you have with her. If you go to the bar together you can say “you can buy me a few drinks” if live next door you could say “you can mow my lawn once or twice this summer” etc but letting her do something in return (I’ve found) makes people feel better even if it isn’t any where near equal.
It’s all good. She finally called them (after the secretary talked to her again) plus then she found my card so now the cat’s out of the bag and all is well. They’ll deliver it on Friday and she’s very excited. 
As a single mom myself I KNOW how much easier life will be for her now that she can do laundry at home!
Yay! Thanks for the advice.
That’s very kind of you. She’s lucky to have a friend like you.