Charities - are they allowed to do this?

But all done in the best possible taste!

Owain

Reply to
Owain
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Its also a con used by charities. Few years ago I had a guy asking for a single, one off donation of £5 to help deaf children. Couldn't take any money from me, would I fill in a form. When I read it closely it was a DD form for £5 a month, but not at all obvious unless you read it in great detail.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

Would the Sort Code + Account Number not be a giveaway? :-)

Reply to
Usenet Nutter

Mis leading information given by the canvaser. You'd still need to give the SC & Acc.No. for a one off donation via DD (which would mean tne charity got even less after the DD set up fees had been taken by the bank).

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

I remember something similar - however it was the other way round - the "chuggers" (charity muggers!) as I think they were called actually get something like 95% of the money raised in the first year, it's only after that that the charity starts to get money - big incentive for the people getting mugs to sign up...

Gordon

Reply to
Gordon Henderson

From what I recall, they're either on an hourly rate, or they're on a commission per sign-up (typically£50, ISTR). When the charities are asked, most claim their chuggers are on an hourly rate, but actually that's not true, and they're mostly on commission. They generally don't work for the charity, but for separate (non-charity status) fund-raising companies.

Whatever the case, this particular chugger wasn't asking for enough money to be genuine.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Andrew Gabriel wibbled on Tuesday 12 January 2010 10:18

Oh great. So rather a significant proportion of someone's giving goes to fund the chugger's wages *and* to run some random company...

I can fully appreciate that giving dosh directly to a charity entails some of the money being used for staff - but at least the understanding is that those staff are working directly towards the aim of the charity. Not funding a whole food chain of scavengers.

Reply to
Tim W

On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:45:48 GMT someone who may be Harry Bloomfield wrote this:-

Then they are being rude and you may not feel the need to be particularly polite. Same with other forms of direct marketing.

Reply to
David Hansen

Indeed, although charities find they get more income this way. Same is true of the common web based donation methods used to select the charity you want to give to, which slice something off. (Lack of any warning about this when making a donation has come up on Radio 4's You and Yours in the past.)

The two charities I support get paid direct without any involvement of fund raising companies.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

On Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:30:40 +0000 (UTC) someone who may be snipped-for-privacy@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) wrote this:-

I imagine all charities would like it if all their supporters did this. The ones I support certainly would. However, they would have to increase the number of staff employed in order to reach the same income level. There must come a point where it is more efficient to contract out part of the fund raising, Mrs Thatcher would be proud of them.

Reply to
David Hansen

David Hansen wibbled on Tuesday 12 January 2010 11:38

They need to get more e-nabled (OK I'll get me coat, but later...)

Seriously, all proper charities have a web site and it's relatively little overhead to have people sign up there.

What they need to do is to have a drive to get eyeballs there and to make the whole process of giving (which should be either the choice of a painless one off or an equally painless continuous authority or DD or, dare I say it, standing order - standing orders are incredibly easy for people who do online baking to set up and leaves the control firmly with the person).

OK lets see...

Barnardos - DD/CA looks easy but no easy one off. There is a one off, but I have to give my life history - come on - PayPal, charity Bank Account Details..., Mobile Phone donation?

British Heart Foundation - Looks tedious

Cancer Research - Better. apart from email, only the bare minimum to process a card payment - but PayPal etc etc?

Oxfam - Min details for card payment but no other way...

Think I'll email all of them seeing as it's come up. I'd like to see Sort/Account details for one offs/SOs and a couple of quick click 'n' pay options.

The way to get people IMO these days is to make it trivially easy to lob a couple of quid their way - that's how mobile phone ringtone/games companies do so well[1]. Maybe I don't want to give away my identity.

[1] I realise that this option makes the phone companies (or Paypal in one of my other examples) richer but it surely must be cheaper than the chuggers?
Reply to
Tim W

I gave a reasonable sum to Save The Children when we came back from India a couple of years ago, and the bastards have bombarded me with begging letters ever since. Frankly, all they've done is guarantee they'll never get another penny off me.

Reply to
Huge

probably costing them more than the actual sum you gave: most charities budgets go on fundraising activities. To the point where its arguable any ever gets to the stated target.

Same with most government grants actually.

In the end they are just novel ways to create jobs for useless people.

I simply won't do charities at all.

I'd rather give a couple of quid to a beggar on the streets, frankly. Even if it does go on methylated spirits.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Huge wibbled on Tuesday 12 January 2010 14:18

Which is why I don't want to be giving them my email address (or any other address if I can pay without).

Never mind - next new feature I'll be implementing in my new exim (email) config soon will be throwaway addresses ( eg tw_amazon@... ) then I can see exactly who is leaking my details - and blacklist them...

Reply to
Tim W

The Natural Philosopher wibbled on Tuesday 12 January 2010 14:22

But the fact that our various governments take our money and find novel ways to waste it is practically a tautology. He says, having HMRC tax return web thingy open on the screen right now... (bah)

I suppose I'd rather pay to have extra Civil Servants than pay benefits to useless chavs - at least the former keeps them off the streets 9-5. I prefer my Civil Servants and politicians useless - it's the ones who try to be useful that are dangerous.

Or spend it in the charity shop. Re-use of products, employment, and maybe a bit left for some charity - at least there are several winners that way. Our local one is like Arkwrights - floor to ceiling with loads of cheap (but usable) stuff. And they do and take electrical (her husband is a qualified PAT tester). I've no objection to buying clothes (they wash), china/glass (ditto) and even the kiddy games are often in good nick.

Reply to
Tim W

My Plusnet account allows unlimited email addresses so I've been doing this for a few years.

Expedia and Royal Mail have leaked my address.

Reply to
F

The staff are almost exclusively volunteers. The one my son helps at will pay luch and trvel expenses if you do a certain minimum number of hours.

MBQ

Reply to
Man at B&Q

F wibbled on Tuesday 12 January 2010 15:11

Do they let you disable specific ones too? Or do you have to create extra ones on demand (I can do this already, but I've going to stick some regex doobries in my config so they all exist until I blacklist them)

No surprises there...

Reply to
Tim W

Man at B&Q wibbled on Tuesday 12 January 2010 15:19

That's nice - it's the way charities ought to be (and used to before some of them got rediculously top heavy). Hopefully it means more dosh to the charity...

Reply to
Tim W

A very useful feature, not only for tracing leaks. If I get an scam that appears to be from a bank I don't use it is obviously a fishing expedition. If it purports to be from my bank there may be a moments hesitation before sending it to the bit bucket. If the email address I use for online banking is never used elsewhere then that is another check on authenticity.

Reply to
djc

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