To absolutely HATE when shops ask you to donate?

[ProfessionallyIrritated]

IABU and I know it, I’m just hot, bothered and peeved off.

you know when you’re in literally anywhere, like for instance McDonalds and it always wants you to round up to the nearest pound… I can deal with it on self service tills as you can just click no.

was in Poundland earlier buying a couple of essential cleaning bits, came to £4.50 (don’t get me started on how nothing in POUNDLAND is ever A POUND anymore!!!!!!)

self serve tills aren’t even working so I go to a regular till.

Barely-out-of-his-teens cashier scans my items and then was like “and would you like to donate £3 to” I don’t even remember what it was. I was like no thank you, and he went (loudly) “are you sure? You could make a difference to someone today”

me: no thank you, and I don’t think you should be pressuring people into making donations when they don’t want to.

him: well a lot of our customers do donate so that’s why we ask

if it was rounding up to the nearest 10p or even 50p I don’t think I’d mind as much but THREE POUNDS? that’s only just less than what my shopping came to…..

I know charities need to raise money and IA definitely BU but why the fuck do shops ask people to donate to charity? It doesn’t help their buisness presumably. And what happened to just pressing a button on the PIN pad to say no instead of having to verbally broadcast it? It’s almost like being peer pressured into donating ffs.

I can barely afford to live as it is, I don’t have the money to be donating to charity at the moment as mean as that makes me sound

After that comeback about making a difference to someone today, I'd have wanted to reply that I was choosing to make a difference for myself. Honestly, they have no way of knowing who can or can't even afford to donate, much less how much you may already have given in the past week or month.

It's bad enough to ask at all, but to refuse a polite refusal is shameful. I wonder if there is some incentive for securing donations or if this cashier was just overzealous for some other reason.

The last time we were challenged my autistic ds piped up with "we ARE in a rush you know" comments (we actually weren't but he hates shops and wanted to leave) they looked like they had swallowed a frog and we paid and left he did try to snark at the next customer about it but he calmly responded I don't think she hates disabled children pretty sure she HAS one (he knew us)

I hate being put on the spot

I had this (with much “are you sure?” pressure) in a chocolate shop. The charity wasn’t one I had heard of, I had no idea whether or not I would want to give them my money so I declined.
It is really, really annoying. DH and I donate decent chunks of cash when there are disasters, eg the earthquake recently. We also have some standing orders for local charities, the local air ambulance etc. As any other adult would do, I work out who I want to donate to, what I can afford, and act accordingly. Having emotional manipulation from a twenty year old shop assistant gave me the rage.

How about asking them to tell you more about what the money will be used for? It won't take long for them to stop hassling you then.

I don't like the rounding up ones as I have a savings/pension thing that is meant to round up and transfer it. I hadn't realised it was a tax dodge either so now I feel more justified in being annoyed!

I bought something in Body Shop today, and the electronic gizmo asked me to donate to something or other.

I'm perfectly capable of choosing what I'd like to donate to in my own time, then doing that.

I don't think that makes sense does it? They would only pay tax on products sold.

Use it as an opportunity to practice your assertiveness. The same with chuggers or those people that try to get you to sign up to rac/utility warehouse/british gas/whatever. A strict 'no thank you' and eye contact usually does the trick. Or if it's a machine, just press no and mentally tell it to fuck off.

It depends how they enter it into their financial and tax calculations. That might be a good question to ask the cashier. 'How will it be recorded, for tax purposes?' and then when they say they're not sure, a polite 'Best not, then.' will stop them pushing you further.

YANBU , they also shouldn’t allow charity chuggers to stand right in the entrance to the shop .

they cant add it to their donations expensed unless they also recognise it as donations received so it would be a wash and not affect their taxes. However they probably are smug fuckers in their CSR report and claim that they’ve collected and given x amount of donations.

Asking people to donate raises millions for good causes.

But it's a choice and you can say no.

Mumsnet is so anti charity.

Yes round where I live, the petrol stations do it. I'm pretty sure BP and Esso have more spare cash than me. It drives me mad.

Hassling people to donate is a different matter, though, you must agree?

Why feel bad about it? Just have a line ready to say like
"No, I won't be doing that" or
"No, and by the way please feed back to your management that I think this is a really insensitive thing to be asking everyone" or
"No there are other more tax efficient ways to donate".

If enough people are slightly snarky about it they'll take it to their management and stop. Job done.

It’s not about being anti charity , I give plenty to charities but the ones I’ve personally picked not ones selected by a shop .

This. The employees age is irrelevant, poverty wage staff in shops are made to spout drivel at customers, no one enjoys it and the rich bosses pat themselves on the back.

@Watchkeys

Hassling people to donate is a different matter, though, you must agree

'Would you like to make a donation' asked verbally or electronically is not hassling it's a question to which you have a choice of answer.

@Floralnomad

Mumsnet is full of anti charity threads like this one.

(Posted before I saw your reply) complain by email to the company

I agree.

It's not what happened to OP though.

It’s always the same charities, as well. The large ones which have a marketing department who go round to companies’ marketing departments and sign them up, so that they can all virtue signal their ‘concern’ without actually putting their hands in their own pockets.

We were asked to donate to a well known charity when we were buying a sofa. I particularly dislike this charity’s activities in the gender field, so I told the salesman exactly why we wouldn’t be donating. He was actually quite shocked to find out what they did, and said he was going to speak to his manager about it. I don’t suppose it did any good at corporate level, but never mind.

He took the sticker off his ordering computer.

I just say no thanks and don't give it a second thought. I donate a small amount each month to an animal charity so I feel under no obligation to donate anything else to anyone else. Don't worry about it op.

It’s a way for the shops to pay less tax.

It’s like the new version of chugging except they know you have some money because you’re paying for goods