to think this is not the way for a charity to behave?

[tinky19]

(grrr just wrote this but lost it all!!)

Before I start I'd like to make it clear that I know Marie Curie do lots of wonderful work. I do give to charity and I am registered to give bone marrow with Anthony Nolan Trust.

So, today a girl knocks at the door and asks if I'll sign up to give £2 a week via direct debit. I said I'd rather give a one off payment as dh is possibly about to be made redundant and I didn't want to sign up to anything. She gives me a funny look and says 'it's only £2'

She then calls over her boss who goes through it all again and I say the same again (all this time 2yo ds if trying to escape out the front door and 8mo dd is trying to wriggle free so she can crawl after him)
I asked if i could pay £2 or £3 a month instead as that would be more affordable but they said no!

I finally said yes just to get rid of them. He then puts down £10 a month and says I can cancel it so i can make a decent sized payment then cancel!

AIBU to think this is not the way to get people to support a charity?

AIBU to cancel my direct debit immediately?

YANBU to cancel the direct debit if you can't afford to donate that much. They sound very very pushy, and it sounds like they pressurised you into signing up when you didn't want to.

Also, I may be wrong about this, but I think that people who go around asking you to set up direct debits to charity only get paid if they get people to sign up. I know this doesn't excuse their behaviour, but it may explain it.

I just say I don't give any details at the door but they are welcome to leave me some information. That's that. YANBU to cancel the whole thing, no. Cheeky swines.

I would. The chuggers are paid and it takes something like is it 18 months of paying before the charity sees any of the money!

I have cancelled and the woman at the end of the phone could not have been nicer

She said they had spent a lot of time and money on training to make sure his was not the way they would behave!

Cancel your direct debit and make a complaint, they're way out of line.

YWBU to not tell them where to go and shut the door in their face!

I would have done.

But I would have been polite about it.

Our family benefits from the work done by Cancer Research, Kidney Cancer UK and NDCS amongst others. I'd rather support these than people who come knocking door to door.

I think this is appalling behaviour and would cancel the DD on principle.

i would have shut the door in their faces for being so rude :o

Why not just say no? I usually say "I already support your charity" (even if it is only by making a small donation on an irregular basis), or "It is not a charity I choose to support", or if I am in a chatty mood "I would love to be able to afford to support your charity along side the ones I do already, and when I win the lottery I will be sure to sign up!".

and she would be on commission - def cancel the dd - cheeky of them and no different to any other target commission driven sales imo

Usually these people are not employed by the charity. They are working on behalf of a sales and marketing co, on a self employed commission only basis.

I know this, as years ago I worked for one of these companies. It was hard slog, and I didn't make a lot of sales as I didn't agree with either pressurising people or lying. Which is how the "best" people made their money.

CANCEL. These companies get paid loads to drum up business or rather collect direct debits. I pointed out that at £2 a week It would take over 2 years of my weekly payments before the charity saw a penny. I prefer to donate direct even if a % still goes on admin.

YANBU that is awful.... we get a few round here and I just say Im sorry I dont sign up things at the door. If they or anyone else come again just say the same thing so you dont feel pressurised. It really annoys me people doing it on the doorstep, as some people feel intimidated into doing it. IMO, I think cahrity is a very personal decisions, and people should not be "made" to feel like they have to. I support a lot of charities.... but they are all ones that I have some connection to.

We once had someone on the phone to DH trying to get him to up our monthly donation, and when DH pointed out we were giving as much as we could afford the bloke said, "did you know it's costing £xxxxx to make these phonecalls?", so DH pointed out they'd be better off putting that money into charitable work, then they wouldn't need to pester people so much.

Your £10 will go directly to the company hiring them. They are paid more than NMW + commission

Awful. My list of charities I will never give to again is getting longer and longer because of things like this.

Sick of chuggers knocking on my door after dark. Sick of them saying snootily 'oh no, our minimum donation is £8.' Sick of saying 'no, I'm sorry, I already give to several charities via Payroll Giving, but I change them every year and I will consider yours next time' and then being guilt tripped with 'Oh, but all your neighbours have signed up, and it's only a small amount' and looking at me like I'm a tight wad. If I gave a few quid a month to every charity that knocks on my door or stops me in the street I'd be bankrupt. Since when did they all get so snooty that a one off donation in a collection box isn't good enough for them??

Dog's Trust last weekend tried to pressure my elderly (and very niaive) mother into signing up on the spot at some event when she wanted to take some literature home, think about it, and maybe do it online. They tried telling her that the security of her data was guaranteed if she did it then, and not online. I cut in, said I'm sure the Data Protection Commission would be very interested to hear that they were taking people's data via an inescure website and dragged her off.

I done a trail with one of these companies many moons ago, it was awful.

I work for a national charity and we adapted this as a fundraising technique add whilst it was profitable, despite their cut, the damage it was doing to our relationship and reputation was massive so we stopped.

I used to give £2 a month to a charity. I cancelled because it didn't even cover the cost of them ringing me and writing to me to get me to up it to £5.