To ask how I can stop those door to door charity people from ringing my door bell?

[Ginshizz]

You know those people who come round and try to get you to sign up for a monthly direct debit? They are seriously pissing me off. Now don't get me wrong, I give to charity, I donate clothes etc, I have three direct debits set up to charities (managed to set these up all by myself) and before I had DD, I volunteered too.

But I am sick of how many charity door to door people have been harassing me! For example, over the past week alone, I have had three of the buggers on my doorstep:

One was collecting for the dogs trust but asked if I could put my very quiet, gentle Labrador on a lead while he tried to convince me to sign up as he was scared of dogs. Seriously.

One refused to go when I said I was in the middle of feeding my baby so could he go away. He even offered to take over feeding her while I read his marketing material. This creeeeeeeeped me out hugely.

One (today) rang the bell three times and knocked twice, waking my baby up after it had taken me ages to get her to go to sleep. I opened the door, told her what she'd done and asked her to leave. She responded by saying "before I do, could I talk to you about ..."

I have a piece of paper by my door bell saying I do not sign up to door to door charity marketing so could they please not call. They take no notice.

The reason I answered my door to these fuckers people when they do call is that the keeeeeeeep ringing driving me, my DD and my dog mad. I tried disconnecting the bell, they just knock and knock and knock.

What do I need to do to get them to stop?

At what point will actual physical violence get them to take my address off the register?

Is there a trade body I can report them to? But more importantly, can I actually set a bear trap on the way to my door? Or throw kitchen knives at them from the top floor?

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Ranting over. Time for gin ...

And I would pay good money for a outdoor doormat that had "UNWELCOME" written on it.

Also OP, if you are bothered by telephone sales people, we used to have one calling all the time and insisting on speaking to DH, who was away at the time. She wouldn't tell me who she was or how she had our number, quoting the data protection act, but I put the number into Whocallsme.com and it turned out to be some sort of loan company. So the next time she rang I demanded to know if she was having an affair with my DH and she never rang again.

I would write to the charity concerned and say how unhappy you are with this practice of door to door coercing people into signing. I've only had the one and said I would not sign up for door to door monthly donations. He said why not. I just said I prefer to give as and when I like. The more people who fall for this the more they will do it. I think it's wrong. When I found out these people actually get paid for every mug they sign up I could hardly believe it.

"All your neighbours have signed up."
"Well, you won't mind if I don't, then."

Put a notice up on the door saying:

PRIVATE PROPERTY
By knocking on this door you agree to the following terms and conditions.
Any unsolicited callers knocking on this door to either sell any product or service or request donations to any cause are required to pay a £20 aadministration fee prior to us listening to you. This must be paid immediately in cash when we answer the door. If you fail to pay immediately you can and will be sued in the civil courts.

It's not actually enforcable, but you can have fun having a conversation which is solely about insisting they pay up until they go away.

We get a regular stream here, of chuggers, fake chuggers, utility company people, religious people, people wanting to do our driveway or windows or roof, and most often people from "the government" kindly offering to sort us out with grants.

Those ones piss me off the most, because I don't know how gullible I must look, that they think I'm going to believe the government sends them to my door to try to give me "free money I'm entitled to". Surely I don't look that credulous?!

Cold calling on the phone? Just place your phone next to the radio or tv. Even better if you then sing along with whatever record is playing. They will soon get fed up and hang up.

Or hand phone to nearest child. Mine are now trained in a variety of appropriate responses.

Bogus solicitor: 'Can I talk to the person who's had an accident?'
Ds (aged 8) 'That's me! I've just pooed my pants!'

You could always try my brothers method.

There was a knock at the door, he was sat on the computer chair with wheels. So he scooted over to the door, crashed into the door, and fell off the chair.

Then he opened the letter box and stuck his fingers through (for best effect make sure the fingers are covered in dirt and blood from doing handywork all day) and in his best little old lady voice said, "hewwoooo?"

Cold caller - "Um.. er... could I talk to you about.."

Brother - "Errrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmm....
[ here go as high pitched as you possibly can ]
NOOOOOOOOOO!"

Cold caller - "I.. erm.. er..."

They don't come back, I promise!

I am suddenly so tempted to mock up some fake flyers to hand out to cold callers, how weird should I go?

• Leaflets about selling their soul?
• How about invitations to a human sacrifice?
• Join my religion for a one off £200 fee?

Any more ideas?

Anyone want some copies?

I had a chugger for a charity for disabled kids. I agreed with him that it was indeed a wonderful cause.......and then said that i have a disabled child (true)and needed some specialist equipment so how much money was he going to give me?

If you have a sign up on your gate stating that you do not speak to sales people, chuggers etc.. and they walk onto your land without permission or refuse to leave without permission then it is trespass to land under the law see here. Not easily enforceable except by taking charity/company to court, to seek damages or getting an injunction (which in trivial trespass cases often doesn't get you anywhere) but the mention of legal action might scare them off.

You could try the nicely at first tactic, then switch.

Find out what company they work for and their name. Then thank them for their information and tell them if they do not F the F off you will be making a complaint about them to their company and taking legal action against them for trespass.

Slip one of your bras onto your DH and then get him to answer the door. If it isn't enough to put them off, have him talk like the "for ladies" guy in Little Britain.

It works better abroad, where there is less chance of the cold callers having seen the program, but when they come round here I talk to them in the voice of one of the Little Britain characters. Love their faces when they are hit with a Vicky Pollard flood of gibberish. If I am feeling less energetic, they just get Andy Pipkin's "Yeah, I know".

Of, if I have less time, a Margery Dawes "Skarooooo You".

Unfortunately, DW will not support me in doing Bitty.

Empusa please send me some of your leaflets! Especially the religious cult ones!

I love the idea of the £20 admin fee ... And threatening to sue the buggers.

I am going to print off some grumpy signs now and stock up on things to throw from the upstairs windows. I have decided knives might be a bit harsh... However, I have been wondering what to do with the mouldy tomatoes in the bottom of the fridge

Badlad, you should definitely get your DW to try bitty, just the once to see what happens!

Attack/guard dog (or attack/guard child) would probably scare them off.

They do take on a whole new annoyance level when you have a sleeping baby. Love some of the suggestions.

I used to work for a charity that used them and the ones that set up stands in supermarkets. Charities only do this because it does make them money, so essentially there's a trade off between their fundraising and their reputation, if these people really annoy people who might have given to them at some point to the extent that they don't. There must be a cumulative 'anti-charity' effect that's harder to analyse too. So, if they annoy you, tell the charity. They will care if the annoyance level is so great it's counterproductive.

My charity used postcode analysis that told them which areas people who already gave to them lived in. They then targeted those and similar areas, as these offered the best chances. That will be why some areas get lots of them.

The chuggers / recruiters are paid, it's their (often rather thankless, low wage) livelihood, and usually work for a company, though some work for the charity direct. Sales is a skilled job (though some of the companies have laughably low recruitment and training standards and do get sacked by charities as a result - another reason to tell them). Volunteers generally don't want to do this work and it would cost a huge amount to organise an equivalent volunteer effort and you'd have even less accountability.

Most do earn commission (underpinned by minimum wage if they didn't make enough) so will sometimes push people to absurd levels of direct debit. That's really counterproductive for the charity, as they only make a profit in the second year and high payers drop out fast, whereas modest payers staying for many years is what you really want. There was some caveat on the commission, so it wasn't paid if the person dropped out quickly. So, targeting vulnerable people would be counterproductive for the charity but occasionally recruiters will meet one and unwisely try to take advantage.

How about a sign explaining that you keep a loaded squirt gun by the door for chuggers, and that you will regard their ringing/knocking as unspoken permission to use it?

You have to enforce it though. If it doesn't work, switch from water to sour milk and amend your sign accordingly.