Chugging

[Weatherlawyer]

New word on me today. Apparently Stoke on Trent is so annoyed by charity wo rkers mugging shoppers that they are curtailing their activities.

It never bothered me much, although I would much prefer to be left feeling better about giving to charity than the way I feel about being approached t hese days. It all smacks of peer pressure and school bullies.

While I don't rebuff anyone I do ask them how much their directors earn and if it is more than I do they can whistle. I gather that the actual street volunteers are on a commission only. I have offered cash to ease my conscie nce but they won't take it as they want me to tie my account to them as it is only a few pennies a day.

But it is only a few pennies a day I can spend at a charity shop and everyb ody comes away in profit at those. It's just hard to keep focussed when wha t I would really like to do is drag all those directors to a relevant shit hole and make them work at improving the region they are supernumerary to.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I give to two charities regularly, and they get paid directly by standing order, not through a funds raising company which skims off your donation.

[Broadback]

My wife and I decided a couple of years ago to dispense with Christmas cards, apart from close family and donate the money saved to a charity of our choice. Despite telling them we wanted no begging letters we were inundated with them and not just from the charity we had chosen. So now we donate anonymously, which means they lose out on the tax benefit, sad, but, in my opinion inevitable.

[dennis]

You should rebuff them as the charity is unlikely to get anything from the first 12 months worth of payments, most, if not all goes to the company doing the chugging. If you cancel the payments at the end of the

12 months the charity will have got nothing at all.

[Roger Mills]

+1 (except that it's more than 2)

[alan_m]

The majority of the money given to charity actually goes to these types of companies. As for doing good, you would better off flushing £5 notes down the toilet.

[Graham.]

Did you say the "volunteers" are on "commission". Now there's a thing.

[Weatherlawyer]

If that is true then they are misrepresenting their product and are guilty of false adverising. Can you demand it all back?

[David Lang]

If you sign up for one of these £3 a month could save XYZ things they will constantly pester you to increase it afterwards. We signed up for the NSPCC once and got so fed up with their constant pleas to increase it, we cancelled in the end.

[ARW]

How much do managers of charity shops get paid?

[charles]

Nothing , for a great many of them

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

As a contractor I did work at Age Concern HQ in Chorley, Lancashire. I've never seen so many BMWs in a car park. It was winter, the heat in those offices nearly knocked me down. The dreamboats in there were wandering around wearing tee shirts. Corrupt from the neck down, like all charities.

Mrs Pounder Esquire used to have a direct debit to RNLI, I kept telling her it was a scam and she canceled it. They rang us, and rang us and rang us ............... Mrs Pounder Esquire always seemed to pick up the phone. They only stopped when I took the call and told them to f*ck off.

[Weatherlawyer]

But they do get first dibs.

[Bod]

No they don't.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Andrew Gabriel escribió:

And yet they still flood your letterbox with junk mail and phone calls saying "can you give just a little more?" while selling your details on left, right and centre to other charities no matter what boxes you tick.

My mum, who gave a lot to charity, got so sick of them she stopped all her standing orders and now they get nothing.

Charities are just businesses that pay less tax, no matter what they would have you believe. The "Church" of $cientology being a case in point.

[charles]

There are a very large number of small charities which are not businesses.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Weatherlawyer escribió:

I can smell another PPI-style scandal brewing.

[Dave Liquorice]

Just one here the GNAS(*). They get money, in theory, by two routes:

10% of the ex VAT mobile phone contract fee with TPO and I buy as many subscription numbers for their weekly lottery as allowed. (4 @ 50p/week/each).

Skims? That implies taking a small amount off the top. AIUI in majority of the firms it is the skim goes to the charity.

(*) Why the air ambulance services are not substantially or fully funded from central government I really don't understand. In many parts of the country they really do make the difference between life and death. From here it's an hour or more by twisty rural A road to the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle or if you are really ill/broken, nearer two hours to the RVI in Newcastle. Air Ambulance is 20 mins RVI, less to the CI without the bumps, bends and stop starts, etc.

[dennis]

Its not a charity, its not registered.

[Huge]

[11 lines snipped]

The same has happened to my wife, who donates to several charities.

Also, and we found this offensive, when my M-I-L died, as executors of her will, we were inundated with begging letters from charities distantly related to the Good Causes she had specified for charitable donations.

They can all eff off, so far as I am concerned.