Would you like to round up to £1? No I fucking wouldnt.

As an oxfam volunteer myself, we'd love to price like that, but Head office at the pricing policy and we're not allowed to, because allegedly anything ending in 99 will appear cheaper.
I think it's nonsense.
We have sales targets too. Utterly ridiculous.

Haha
My brother bought the condoms
In some countries,some believe that if you are hiv+,having sex with a Virgin will cure you of the disease (that was the blurb in the leaflet anyway-I have no idea if that's true)
I'm guessing they also educated people on it all to stop this practice and helped stop the spread of the disease

If you met my father,you'd know he hates 'stuff'
He hates that we buy tat and pass it on while receiving tat,all in the spirit of 'but it's christmas/your birthday!'
Hence,we just bought him bags of peanuts/york fruit sweets,so this seemed like the perfect compromise-he got less peanuts and sweets (that he likes to eat as a few a year,not 10 bags in a week) his name on a donation and helped someone less fortunate than himself, he was happy,we where happy and a charity benefitted

Oxfam really shot themselves in both feet as this was over 25 years ago (dd is almost 29 now and she was a toddler then) and we would have spent about £500/600 a year on this stuff between us but they spent waaayyy more than that hounding him for more money and had to be forced to stop and not another penny spent by any of us

(I'm now nc with my whole family and still refuse to go into any of their shops on principle)

That is seriously off from Oxfam (although not surprising for them, I'd say). What a perfect way to kill the golden goose and spite themselves.

Aside from the volume of harassment to give, why would they target the 'recipient' and not the actual person who has supported/given to them for thr 'present'? Doesn't that go against data protection laws?

This certainly serves as a very stark warning not to give to them at all. Surely there must be far smaller, much less bloated and greedy charities, who just get on with the cause rather than making it all about them?

I can't remember their name, but that charity that acts as a go-between to enable people in wealthy countries to give micro-loans to (usually women) in poor countries, for them to start and run sustainable businesses sounds amazing.

Also, not the point at all, but I can't imagine 'giving' somebody a load of condoms as a 'present' for somebody else to benefit from!

"Happy birthday, Dad - I bought you a massive bumper pack of Johnnies!!" = awkward.

"No, no, they're not for you to use - they're for a stranger!!" = probably even more awkward.

I mean, I can certainly see why they're so greatly needed by people in developing countries; but could they not, say, just increase the cost of a goat by 10% and use the extra funds to discreetly throw in a batch of condoms as well - or even just classify them as 'personal healthcare supplies'?!

Good grief! I don't remember any mention of that when I was looking at Oxfam's "funusual" gifts. Maybe they should change their advertising?

Got a relative or colleague that you hate, but are obliged to buy for? Why not buy them a toilet in a developing country! They won't be able to moan about not receiving anything without looking petty, and you can have the added satisfaction of knowing that they will be regularly hassled by phone calls and letters asking them to donate money!

We had something similar with oxfam (I'm going back a few years)
My father is sooooo hard to buy for and it's sods law that his birthday is days after christmas,so a bit of a double curse as he doesn't do 'stuff'
After years of getting york fruit sweets and peanuts (twice over) id happened to nip into oxfam and noticed a leaflet where you could buy something for people in a third world country
I raced back and told my family who agreed he'd love it
We bought him 2 goats,some tree,50 condoms and a few other random bits-came to about £500 between us
All good,he was happy that he didnt get endless bags of sweets or tat (that he didnt want in the first place)
Well,oxfam had him in their sights!
5/6 phone calls a day to nag him into donating £5/10 a month (ha!good luck with that,he hates parting with pennies,let alone notes) and he kept refusing and putting the phone down
They kept hounding him,he kept telling them to go away and this must be costing a fortune-how much where they spending on phone calls rather than what they where meant to be spending money on?
In among all this,he was getting endless letters,(at least two a day) all demanding money
My mother had to contact the ceo (twice) to get them to stop in the end,after they'd ignored his 'take my details off your systems now!im not consenting to this harassment!'
If they'd stayed in their lane and not hounded him,we would have bought loads every christmas (I admit that's not ideal but better than nothing at all)

Top it all off,within weeks there was that sex scandal with oxfam volunteers (or staff?I can't remember but it was huge in the news at the time)

I hate the 'can we round it up?'
It's almost every shop,which mounts up and the charities are not the ones id support

It was a rhetorical 'why don't the managers do this?' - not expecting you personally to explain their choices!

Well, I don't know. I'm not the shop manager, am I?

Then why not put it in a bargain bin right next to the till, with a huge luminous sign saying "Shampoo - just 20p a bottle!!!" ?

That'd shift it quickly, without having to keep hassling people who aren't interested.

That's usually stuff that's not been selling well, and it's a last ditch attempt by the shop manager to try and get shot of it.

I'd be very tempted to explain to them that it's going to take us both an immensely long time if they go through every one of their products in turn and ask if I want to buy it - and suggest that maybe it would be massively quicker and far more efficient if they just put all of their stock out on shelves and left people to choose and pick up everything that they want to buy and bring it to the till themselves.

I wouldn't, of course, as it's most probably some poor person on NMW who's been ordered to do it and hates that; although I'd consider writing to their head office if the policy persisted, or maybe share my 'handy top tip' on their Twitter feed every time it happened.

I may have said this earlier on in the thread. If people wanted to buy stuff like in the Superdrug example, shower gel or tissues, they would have picked these up before going to the tills!

That’s 5 Friction Points for 1 transaction! 😵‍💫 People want frictionless transactions!

I bought a few bits in Superdrug today, at the till I was asked if I wanted to buy shower gel or tissues, to press the red or green button on the chip and pin to donate or decline a charity donation. She then told me about and gave me a leaflet regarding the Superdrug Sim Card, finally she asked me to press the red sad face or the green happy face to confirm that she had told me about the sim deal.

It's shameless and disgusting.

However, it's often 1000 times worse when people DO actually leave a bequest to a charity in their wills. They tend to take over and can make life a misery for your grieving family.

Your loved one and their precious home become an asset that they demand be liquidated - for the very best possible price and the very quickest speed.

You may think that you've left your affairs to be dealt with sensitively by your children in their own way and their own good time, with a token small percentage to be given to a charity once it's all wound up; but many of the charities will impose and demand and want the power of the executors but without any of the work (or costs).

I wouldn't let a grumpy waiter ruin a meal out either.

But I also wouldn't be quick to tip. And I have absolutely no issue about tipping in general.

No need for your snarky remarks to other posters.

That’s really low…preying on grieving families.

I bet some of you experienced this when dealing with a late relative’s estate.

Somehow, charities heard about the death of someone and then write to their estate asking could you consider a donation to help them. That is emotional begging. My mum’s friend had that when dealing with her late DM’s estate. On the will she specified amounts and charities to give to. She followed that instruction and didn’t give anything to the 5-6 charities that wrote to her.

My problem is that if there is a staff member near you when paying and have the screen of extra tips or charity, it’s so obvious that you selected no. The first time I come across this was before contactless so you could look to press buttons.

Do you think it gets worse nearer Christmas.,?
There seems to be an influx of charities supporting help with children at this time.
Christmas can be an emotional time for lots of us. They seem to invest in this .

And then there are the people who never tip, whatever the service, those people are not my fave dinner companions

Yes, it's very poor behaviour on the charity's part.

Plenty of them deliberately start by asking a low amount - typically £2 or £3 a month - by insisting that they can do a lot of good with enough people giving them £2 every month... but it's all just a bait to lure you in their system, before they soon start asking for the amount that they really wanted from you all along.

Ah, I see what you mean... but even so, I don't see why somebody not wanting to reward deliberately shoddy service is the one who makes it awkward, rather than the person/people who are insisting that they should show their gratitude for bad treatment.

Because if one person in a group is a non tipper on principal it makes it difficult for the others who tip

My dsis and her dh used to make a regular monthly payment to Wateraid.
The charity rang them and tried to badger them to increase the payment.
Eventually her dh felt he his"NO" wasn't being heard and just said "Accept the amount we pay or I'll cancel it straight away and you'll get nothing

That's like the equivalent of calling somebody a man-hater, because she objects to the creepy kind of men who deliberately invade your personal space, get in your face and pressurise you into speaking to them on their terms.