To think those high pressure charity street fundraisers should be banned

[startrekk]

This isn't really something I have given much thought to until recently. I always just avoid all contact and walk past the charity fundraisers quickly, ensuring I don't get caught listening to their hard sell.

However recently in the small village where I live there have been a team of around 5 and they are stood apart from each other pretty much blocking the main high street meaning you have to actually ask them to get out of the way as they have taken to hovering in front of you as you get close. I've had them pretend I have dropped something in order to get my attention and comment on my outfit or shopping bags as I've gone past.

I feel sorry for the small independent coffee shop that is located in the spot they have chosen to stand, as everyone avoids this path like the plague now and goes along the path further down.

I know it raises money for charity but I don't feel that is a good enough reason for these high pressure sales tactics to be allowed. There's nothing wrong with standing with a bucket and hoping people give change, but this is just ridiculous! I'd love to know where they learn their 'techniques' for selling.

AIBU? Anyone else who can't stand charity street fundraisers (charity muggers)?

I think one of the numerous problems is the business structure which is used to run these operations.

Yes, it's very successful from the point of view of the charity. Supposing you sign up to pay £10 a month, your first year's giving goes straight to the chugger (or their agency) in commission, and then you cancel your direct debit after 13 months.

This means that the charity has successfully 'made' £10 that they otherwise almost certainly would not have, so they're happy (albeit they would obviously prefer you to keep donating each month).

However, it has cost you/your family £130. Then, as if this weren't bad enough, that remaining £10 goes along a different bloated inefficiency chain, with admin, marketing, fundraising, high CEO wages + perks etc - so, from your £130 (which you may have had to make personal sacrifices to give), maybe £1-£2 goes to the charitable purpose to which you thought you'd given £130. Plus, don't forget the extra £32.50 that they'll discreetly claim as gift aid (if you're eligible) which, granted, hasn't come out of your pocket directly, but which is then diverted away from the NHS, education, police etc.

Nobody would dream of putting money in a bucket if there was a huge sign saying "2% of EVERY donation is guaranteed to go STRAIGHT to the charity" - and people would be utterly outraged - but what is the difference really?

Purely in principle (I know it's not exactly the same as you do have the chance to say no to the chuggers, however coercive and aggressive they may be), it's essentially the same model as burglars/shoplifters often use.

You wonder why ever anybody would sell a telly worth £500 for a bargain £70 in the pub, but they haven't 'lost' £430 at all - they've shifted on the incriminating evidence and gained a near-instant £70 whilst their victim has lost £500, so they're happy to get on with spending their ill-gotten gains whilst planning their next 'trading acquisition'.

On a completely different note, do Weegies find it near impossible read reports of 'chuggers' doing their thing in busy public places without giggling, however harrowing the tales may be?

As an English Midlander and a Still Game fan, I certainly find it somewhat difficult myself....

They dont care about the charity or they would have a collection tin, they would probably collect more that way.

I tell them that I would rather my child was a prostitute than a chugger as it is a more honest profession.

They target women, the elderly and young adults, they almost never stop men.

apparently lots of my other neighbours had already signed up for a monthly direct debit

I just don't get how they think that would make people more likely to sign up. When utility companies or other people selling things tell you blatant lies valuable information about what your neighbours have supposedly done, you might if you were born yesterday be spurred into agreeing the purchase, to avoid being the only person on the street to miss out on the bargain of the year.

But if it's a chugger telling you how many donations they've already supposedly had from nearby, I would just say that, as they already have a lot of support, for the sake of fairness, I'll direct my donation towards a lower-profile charity that hasn't been as lucky.

I'm really surprised by the strength of some of the reactions on here – I haven't lived in the UK for a long time so I'm guessing things have ramped up a lot with street-based charity fundraisers since I was last there...

Standing back, I do find it interesting that people are lumping Big Issue vendors in with charity fundraisers, and it makes me wonder if part of the irritation with all of this is that it's really only these groups of people who actively "sell" something to people these days? Apart from perhaps the people with the perfume bottles in Duty Free (who seem to get the same kind of responses)?

We're constantly bombarded with messages and adverts and billboards trying to sell us things, mostly also to buy the CEO of X product a new yacht at the end of the day– and that's OK – but if it's a person trying to sell something through interacting with you, even for charity, it's a whole different level of uncomfortable and we get really spiky.

I'm around this stuff very little so I'm reading this thread more with an outside interest than any kind of investment either way, but it does get me thinking about the psychology of it all....

Does anything about that ring true for those of you who are in the midst of it more than me?

They dont care about the charity or they would have a collection tin, they would probably collect more that way.

Some would say that charities have to run themselves as businesses nowadays and do anything they possibly can in order to keep the donations coming in.

I would simply ask which person apparently 'doesn't care' more about dying children:

Person 1. The passer-by who politely declines to donate, for any number of legitimate personal reasons;

Person 2. Somebody who, it would seem, heard about the dying children and thought "Ooh, I could make myself a tidy sum by exploiting their plight to emotionally blackmail people into handing over their money each month, leading them to believe it all or mostly goes to helping the dying children; you never know, the dying children might even end up with a few quid as well."

They are also incredibly flirtatious too to the point of it being almost harassment. I made the mistake of giving one of them the time of day and stopped to listen to his sales pitch. He then embraced me and started playing with my hair with his face inches away from mine. Are they that desperate to get a sale that they will come onto someone old enough to be their mother?

We had a donation pay in book for Barnados.my dh runs marathons and often buys a charity place(so he pays the full amount t doesn’t ask anyone to sponsor him) but his employer mAtch gifts and then there is tax relief. So it was about £6k in 2 years. They called me on Easter Sunday during a family lunch to try and get me to sponsor a table at some big shindig they were hosting, I tore up the book and posted it back in pieces. The number they used was the emergency only number for the marathons with a tick that it must not be used for anything else. We have 2 home phones and this was our private one.

I had someone try to get cash off us once shouted oh so you DONT CARE ABOUT CRIPPLED CHILDREN IN OTHER COUNTRIES! teenager replied no I don't there not MINE! she got mortified and scuttled off but her mom and I couldn't stop laughing at her reaction I hate the way they try to shame you into paying them money

I do find it interesting that people are lumping Big Issue vendors in with charity fundraisers, and it makes me wonder if part of the irritation with all of this is that it's really only these groups of people who actively "sell" something to people these days?

One concern I have with the Big Issue (and before anybody hurls instant accusations of racism at me, please read carefully) is that almost all of the vendors, even in small towns, seem to have a poor level of English and demeanours suggesting that they haven't been in the UK for very long.

The way I understand it is that the idea of the Big Issue (in the UK) is so that ANYBODY who lives here (I don't care where they originally came from in the country/world) and then finds themselves homeless or similarly vulnerable, can then apply to become a vendor to try to start on a dignified journey towards improving their circumstances.

I may be hugely misinterpreting the situation here (very happy to be corrected if so), but it does very much look like people have actively decided to come to Britain with the clear intention from the very start of becoming a BI vendor in order to earn a living.

I wouldn't object at all if it were any other (legal) goods that they hoped to sell to make a better-off life for themselves and their families here - neutral goods that people choose either to buy or not to buy on their own merits - but the BI is a very loaded product, designed to make you feel that you 'should' buy one to help out the person (who makes eye contact, smiles and gives you a pleading look), even if you don't want a copy (and they're often reluctant to hand a copy over when you DO give them money, as that hits their 'profits').

Let's be honest: if the Big Issue was sitting on the shelf in WH Smith between Horse and Hound and Take A Break waiting to be picked up and bought (or even if it was a free giveaway like Metro), they really wouldn't shift many copies, would they?

Prepared to be put straight here (with considered reasons rather than just abuse) if I've got it completely wrong.

The SSPCA phone you weeks after you rescue an animal and hand them over to them and they ask you to donate £10 per month.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll (love the username, btw!)

*the BI is a very loaded product, designed to make you feel that you 'should' buy one to help out the person (who makes eye contact, smiles and gives you a pleading look), even if you don't want a copy (and they're often reluctant to hand a copy over when you DO give them money, as that hits their 'profits').

Let's be honest: if the Big Issue was sitting on the shelf in WH Smith between Horse and Hound and Take A Break waiting to be picked up and bought (or even if it was a free giveaway like Metro), they really wouldn't shift many copies, would they?*

I'm not going to tackle the 'coming to the UK' bit of your post because I don't want to derail the thread – but what you say above is kind of my point.

You say the magazine is a 'loaded product', but then you end that sentence not by describing how the product of the magazine is loaded (which I don't think it is – it covers a broad range of topics and the headlines are pretty much never to do with homelessness), but the fact that it's sold to you on the street by the seller through eye contact and a smile (when done as per the Big Issue Code of Conduct, at least).... hence my point in my original post about how being approached by people who have something to sell is what gets people's backs up, not actually the detail of what they're selling / offering.

My guess is that if Big Issue vendors were selling loaves of bread – neutral, legal products as per your post – people would still get annoyed about them. It's not the mag that irritates, it's the fact that we have to interact with someone and decline. Or be rude, as many PPs have said is their approach.

Certainly in the past when I've talked to people about charity fundraisers etc., it's seemed a lot as though the order of experience is a bit like:

1. Approached by charity fundraiser. Feel uncomfortable, don't know how to get out of it.
2. Approached by more. Feel increasingly uncomfortable. Get angry.
3. Decide to hate them all, start developing survival strategies like nasty comments, crossing the road, or pretending to be on the phone.
4. Find reasonable-sounding political / moral reasons to back up your out-of-character spikiness and behaviour, like the fact that they're paid commission and not all of people's donations go to the charity and they focus their energies on women with kids.

The discomfort with having to interact with someone who has something to sell always seems to come first, and then we find reasons to justify our reactions to that discomfort.

I spent a chunk of money on a GoPro this Christmas. The guy who sold it to me probably got commission. I'm fine with that.

But the difference is I showed up in the shop asking to buy a GoPro. A salesman didn't come up to me in the street to make the offer at a time when I wasn't expecting it and wasn't prepared.

If he had, I might have got spiky too. But it's nothing to do with all the well-reasoned out arguments about statistics and impact reports. It's just the discomfort of 'woah, unexpected situation', and it amazes me how that turns into such vitriolic reactions.

Does that make sense?

-“You seem a nice lady”

“Appearances can be very deceiving”

-“Do you like animals?

“Most taste decent in a stir fry, why?”

• “don’t you want to save the children?”

“Fuck no, the earth is overpopulated as it is”

• “do you want to sign up to our charity lottery?”

“Gambling is a sin”

And I’d never give to the RSPCA or the Children’s Society. They are totally and utterly disfunctional internally.

I don't mind chuggers on the street - eyes forward, firm NO! if needed. It's the shits who come to my door that really annoy me. I say the same thing to them all - I don't do business with anyone at the door - the chugger proceeded to question why I had a doorbell if people couldn't use it. I really object to being interrupted to answer the door to uninvited people trying to get money off me.

Oh and agree with the previous points made about the RSPCA being bloody useless and disinterested - wouldn't give them a penny!

Also, I think a lot of big charities completely fail to realise that the sheer amount of greedy freeloaders who've jumped on board seeking to make it into a lucrative career have, over a number of years, been working consistently to kill the golden goose.

It's like the endless CFs we love to read about on here, who 'realise' that they've 'forgotten' their purse/wallet EVERY SINGLE TIME, once they've already shared a big expensive meal and the bill arrives - and then seem genuinely hurt and surprised when people stop wanting to be their friends.

Time was when charity was exactly that - people giving to those less fortunate than them, confident that it would reach its target and do good as intended. People raising the funds would have been volunteers who put the first generous donation in from their own pockets and then began encouraging others to do likewise - purely because of their love of the charity. I'm not saying that there isn't now a place for full-time workers on modest wages, practically enabling them to devote their time.

Now, everybody knows what a big business it is - how they pay their CEOs vast salaries, have ornate, prestigious, multi-storey central-London HQs, want monthly direct debits and, once you give, will be constantly badgering and guilting you into giving more (as well as circling like vultures over dead people's estates). More and more people are realising that big charities are in it largely for themselves (and I do NOT include in this the many kind, ordinary fundraisers on the streets, genuinely believing that every penny really will help), with the stated charitable aims almost just a sideline and the justification for seeking donations to keep themselves in luxury.

It's no different really from the methods used by other big businesses, such as utility companies and insurance firms, who, rather than valuing your loyalty, see it as a sign of gullibility and consequently keep jacking up your prices to take as much as they possibly can from you.

If I believed I could genuinely give money to an impoverished African family and provide them with food, water, safe living conditions etc., I'd love to do so - but when I see that whatever I give will be strategically filtered off at many levels by people far richer than me, long before a few pennies get to the poor family.... sorry, but I wasn't born yesterday.

@ladybee28 it's not an active selling. It's bullying. I can choose not to look up to billboatds, go to toilet instead of TV ads, but unfortunately unless I give complete miss to outside, I can't choose not to be subjected to "Oi you there! Do you care?!" in ear shattering volume. They even tried to get me sign up when I pretended not to speak English! That I think is illegal because person has no idea what are they signing up to.

Big charities are too aggressive and that's why they are not getting anything from me.

Giving should be voluntary, not because you want to get rid of someone with bucket telling you you must not be really good person if you don't give.

With this badgering of vulnerable as well, I frankly hope some of them get shut down. We need new breed of charities. Friendly ones people will love to give to because they are NOT taking a piss.

I thought hard & did research before picking which good causes to set up standing orders for - a few local ones and [[https://fairplayforwomen.com
Fair Play for Women]] - so I have no guilt in speeding past chuggers with a blank face or a quick No thanks.

It is an inefficient way of raising funds, possibly even more so than Christmas jumpers. OK for someone who is confident just to walk past or say 'not now', but as others have pointed out, not for others.

I think if they were banned there would be a lot of support, and I cannot imagine an individual charity protesting loudly. Though someone else would then be targeted no doubt.

I tell all of them ‘I already have a direct debit with you’.

They go away and leave me alone; it works like a charm. 😉

"Standing back, I do find it interesting that people are lumping Big Issue vendors in with charity fundraisers, and it makes me wonder if part of the irritation with all of this is that it's really only these groups of people who actively "sell" something to people these days?"

Are you actually saying i should have gone and bought formula for the BI seller that asked for it or given that male BI seller £30 to pay his rent.

If i did these things every time someone asked how do you suggest i pay my own bills.

"it's not an active selling. It's bullying"

Or chullying

There have always been charity col!ectors on the streets and I was happy to choose my moment to give.
There used to be paper sellers in my city calling out to catch general attention.
There also used to be fruit & veg sellers in the town centre who would call out their price for bananas.( I think , it was hard to decipher!)

None of this bothered me.

It's the personal approach that is so annoying. They'd annoy me if they were offering me free samples of cake tbh. In our local supermarket they know this and stAnd a staff member next to a sign saying please help yourself : they know many people do not wish to be accosted on their way round the store.

i have bought the Big Issue quite a few times but not on those two occasions.

There's a foreign guy in my town who sells Big Issue and has done since about 2008. His English seems no better - maybe that's why he hasn't got a job. He's about as homeless as I am - ie he isn't.

However, he's apparently part of a bigger clan who also sell in a town about 12 miles away. Maybe that doesn't matter, but surely after a decade you should have moved on? It doesn't seem to be helping him so I am not sure what selling Big Issue is actually achieving.

I never buy Big Issue or give to homeless, I sponsor a room with Centrepoint instead, at least then I know my monthly contribution is helping someone who genuinely needs it.

I loath chuggers and avoid like the plague. My own worst experience was Cancer Research in Euston Station when the arrogant prick elected to approach me from side on and put his arms around my neck! He startled me sufficiently that I shouted ‘get the fuck off me’ whereby he had the nerve to behave like a whipped dog, horrified at my manners 😡😡. I watched on the concourse while waiting for my train - he made a beeline for woman/girls of relative youth and clearly thought his brand of cheeky chappy charm allowed him to touch people unsolicited, in a few cases asking if he could use their phone numbers to ‘see that smile again’. I sent the snotty email to end all emails that night.