To detest charity muggers...

[pecanpie]

You know, the ones who accost you on the street for £2/month where over half goes into administration costs. I feel like I am running the gauntlet every time I walk from the tube station to work. There was even an attempt to accost me between the Royal Free Hospital and the tube station - it's not even in Central London! Even worse, I now get similar house calls. I can't escape these 'chuggers' and above all, think it's so intrusive that they come after me at home - literally like being mugged on your doorstep! Whatever happened to good old junk mail?

Should be illegal in my opinion...Anyone willing to help me mount a campaign?!

I hate them too and wish it could be illegal to persistently harass people who are only desperately trying to escape.

I wouldn't mind so much if they backed off after a firm no and didn't try to stop you when you are jogging down the street obviously trying to get somewhere fast, but they duck and dive around you and get in the way and just won't leave you alone. If you are pushed for time and in a tearing hurry they are a nightmare. So many of them also seem to feel that they can make borderline rude remarks.

I've had a few get really snippy with me as I tried to rush around them. One shouted arseily after me: "Oh fine! Don't bother to talk to me then! Nice!" Um, I didn't ask you to jump on me. I did say "sorry, no time," as I fled. What more do you want?

Once when hauling heavy bags back to my car (bags admittedly full of wine and luxuries for a special occasion) a chugger had the nerve to get in the way and stare meaningfully at my heavy shopping and comment that if I spent less on then maybe I could donate to charity! I'll spend my money how I fecking well please tyvm.

I don't mind being asked to donate, less than impressed at being chased by them though. Or having them attempt to block my way.

They used to drive me nuts in Brighton though, every lunchtime I'd walk up North Street and there'd be a line of about 3 or 4 of them within a couple of feet of each other, each would would block your way in turn. Even though they could see that you'd said no to the one before. Especially annoying when that bit of pavement is already severely congested!

I hate them - I've complained about one lot before (I don't find someone commenting on people's appearance and belongings after they've been told no thanks to be appropriate) and these days politeness is out of the window and I do just tell them to fuck off.

I also then mentally blacklist any charity using them and refuse to give to them at all - because I'm not encouraging more of the smarmy fuckers to appear. So RSPCA, Age Concern... the reason I don't give to you - is because you keep fucking pestering me with chuggers.

it sounds like harassment to me. Telling you to "well f`off then", grabbing your dc's hand (that's a dodgy move), zig zagging back and forth to block your path, etc I think it should be banned

Oh gawd, I hate chuggers with a passion. My office is in the main road in Brixton which has one of the busiest pavements I have ever come across and every now and again there is an infestation of chuggers. They stand about 10 feet apart so if you manage to evade one, the next one is right there ready to pounce.

They do the "zany" blocking your path with arms outstretched, walking backwards so you can't pass them. They have all the pointed opening lines. "Do you care about disadvantaged children?", "Can you spare 5 minutes of your life for people poorer than you?". My standard response now is "No" with a big, cheery smile.

Yeh, RSPCA and NSPCC are on my eternal shitlist now.

And my response to the "Are YOU a nice person?" line would have been

"No, I'm a total cunt. How about YOU???"

I hate this too. Had naively assumed these people were volunteers for the charity in question, didn't realise they were getting paid for it!

It puts me off charities too. I do give to charities of my choice - not a huge amount these days as I'm not earning much any more, but I give what I can afford - and it's just counter-productive for people to harass me in the street like that. As if I am going to give my bank details or other personal information to some random stranger in the street anyway! I just push past them if they block my way and refuse to engage.

I can believe they get a fair number of people signing up just to be 'allowed' to get away from them. Some people are easily talked into things by highly persistent, smooth-talking sales people who know how to manipulate. As others have said, I bet those DDs get cancelled pretty quickly as soon as the person is home, not to mention the person being put off that particular charity for life by the bullying tactics they were subjected to.

I find that they leave me alone more now I am pushing a pushchair. DD is quite good at screaming on demand so that puts them off.

I don't really mind them to be honest, so long as you are firm and say no they tend to give up. They are not malicious, most of them are just students trying to earn a bit more money.

However if one of them grabbed my dd's hand I think I would deck them. That is shocking morloth

I dont mind them per se but what I really object to is them taking the moral high ground when they're getting £8 an hour to badger me.

I prefer the smaller charities personally as their funds raised to fundraising costs tend to be more favourable. Some of the big national charities have a 90p in the £ fundraising cost at the margin (eg it costs them 90p to raise a £). They justify it by saying that you cant quantify the awareness it raises but I still think that's appallingly inefficient.

The ones I really hate are the students who spend money on a wacky costume to wear whilst raising the money. Who then get sarky when I dont want to donate. Strangely enough it never goes down well when I suggest if they cared so much about their cause they should not have perhaps wasted money on a costume and instead given the equivalent to the charity

Or the twat who tried to sign me up to donate to GOSH. Now don't get me wrong, they are a wonderful hospital, no doubt about it. But I live far up north. I pointed out to the guy that in actual fact there were several childrens wards in our local area that would love to have some charity income, and I make a point of donating to them first. He was such a prick, telling me if my child needed special medical treatment I'd soon change my tune. I asked for an example, he gave me one, I pointed out our local hospital (up the road from where we were standing) offers this treatment. I asked for another example, he gave me one. Same again. He decided to flounce off after that

Thebride you've hit the nail on the head there for me too. I hope representatives from RSPCA, nspcc, age concern etc are reading this because it is pretty unusual to get universal agreement, apart fr

From one charity worker on a mumsnet thread

I detest the ones who shout loudly, block your way and are generally a pain in the arse when you're trying to get somewhere in a rush.

Big charities presumably have people employed to do the maths and work out that the zany £7.50/ph stage-school rejects bring in more than £7.50 of donations for every hour they are out there annoying people.

So it must work on someone.

Big national charities are really just bg businesses They have marketing departments, highly paid boards of directors, big shiney offices in London and are staffed by people who believe that the world owes them a living because they are 'doing good'.

I donate to local charities and RNLI who don't do chugging campaigns.

Incidentally, does anyone else object to them sending their fund raisers into schools to 'presentations at morning assembly'? Talk about a captive impressionable audience. I think that should be banned from going into schools. It really is quite cynical. The children have no choice but to go to assembly and the peer/teacher pressure to get parents to donate is immense.

I hate them.

I have been pulled, stopped, hounded, followed, shouted at, laughed at all by these chuggers in the street.

I have them knocking at my door at 8pm + some nights, they get told to fuck off, religious ones get an earful as they wont take no for an answer - one even walked to my kitchen via the open back door while I was dusting the living room, bastard nearly gave me a heart attack when I saw him looking out of my kitchen window. Told him the next time he comes in the house, I'm stabbing him. Havent seen him since.

I had another charity that kept pestered even though I had a DD with them. He just kept asking if I could give more and why I should. 20 minutes later I cancelled the DD.

It degrades the whole notion of charity. You are supposed to be moved to help through loving kindness not through wanting to stop the buggers nagging you.

"Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil"

I think that "Doth not behave itself unseemly" is particuarly relevant to the children's TV type capering they tend to do when you are busy trying to avoid them.

I have complained bitterly to the company that employs the chuggers who come to our door, and also to the charity they have been paid a million pounds by to fundraise like this.

I was told quite firmly that it pays to do it this way.

They agreed in writing to instruct their staff not to call again. But of course they do. I am recording each visit and taking names, and when I've got time will take it to the charity regulator and get it sorted.

It's the door-knockers I really resent (again mainly the RSPCA round here). Then they try the "SO DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT THE POOR ANIMALS" very loudly to shame you in front of your neighbours - while sorely tempted to reply that the RSPCA doesn't unless there's a camera crew in front of them, the cat normally answers this one by limping to the front door to see what all the fuss is about in her best "I'm a three legged kitty and I need extra cuddles look at me limp" theatrical impression she reserves for visitors/the gullible.

Like I say - I will put any charity that uses chuggers onto my "do not ever give" list - RSPCA, NSPCC and Age Concern are on there at present. I'd rather give to local charities than the massive flood the TV with adverts behemoths anyway. A family friend died recently - my next charitable donation will be to his memorial fund going toward kids within the city he loved so much... sorry NationalSocietyForThePreservationOfChugging.

In the street I've been known to respond to the "So don't you care about poor animals/disadvantaged children/abused gnats" with a "nope" - that deflates them slightly.

Incidentally - it's quite frightening how deeply the "just £5 a month" malarky's got embedded into kids' brains from the incessant TV advertising. I've just finished marking this year's English SATs and the short writing was a persuasive speech to get your class to choose your charity to raise money for - and the number of kids who have generated an incredibly accurately worded re-write of these TV ads is actually quite scary... there'd be an uproar if they could similarly write a Macdonalds ad word-for-word like that.

I just object to being bullied or coerced into an act of charity - if it's not freely given, it's a meaningless gesture in my book.

I think my particular pet-hate are the ones who spot you coming about a hundred yards away and stand, smiling perkily, waving non-stop as you approach, shifting sideways when you change course to avoid them.

They look like some sort of scary puppet.

I had one stop me in the street once to ask if I liked animals.

I said 'I HATE animals' and carried on walking.

Her plaintive voice followed me - 'But you've got dreadlocks...' - as if thats some kind of indicator of love for cats or dogs or whatever animals it was for.

lol - I had the "Dont you love animals then?" response when I tried to turn one away from the door. Then they spotted the dog that we had at the time.

"You must love animals, you've got a dog"

"Yeah, but I dont fucking like him."

The look on his face as I shut the door was priceless. Exp was pissing himself as he knew full well I was soft as shite when it came to that dog.

Her plaintive voice followed me - 'But you've got dreadlocks...' - as if thats some kind of indicator of love for cats or dogs or whatever animals it was for.

PMSL- you should have said "they're not dreadlocks. They're the tails from the squirrels I shot this morning"

Am I the only one who replies occasionally with "Oh, I already support xx charity!" and carry on walking away, even if it's not true? it gets them off my back and in one memorable case a very grateful hug from a yummy young guy.

I'm very bad, aren't I?