To be annoyed the charity shop called me rude

[ohmydays37]

I donated two huge bags of clothes to local charity shop. Before I could even ask a question the woman who worked there demand my postcode for gift aid. I said my husband deals with that and I explained I wasn't comfortable giving his details without his permission. She then said, I was extremely rude and it was for gift aid and she was running a business. In no way was I being rude (which I told her).

I guess my AIBU to think you can't just ambush people for gift aid without knowing if 1) they pay tax and 2) you need to explain the details of it. Which she didn't.

It’s just a mild debate on a chat forum, no one is ‘hand wringing’.

yanbu. If chazzas want donations they need to be polite

How much does personalised "junk mail" cost the charity to send? I have received letters telling me my gift aid total was less than 2 quid. Negating nearly half their gain.

The chazza is a volunteer, she’s not beholden to anyone.

I'm always grateful for sellable donations, and yes gift aid is a bonus. But the amount of people who use charity shops for basically fly tipping is ridiculous. Dirty underwear, broken toys, smashed crockery, and it costs the charity to get rid of it.

Hmm 🤔 I don’t pay tax as I don’t earn enough ( I’m an unpaid carer ) my husband has signed up for gift aid in a couple of charity shops so we have a little card with a reference number and some stickers to pop on donation bags .
However, if I drop at a different shop I just tell them I’m not a taxpayer and leave it at that .
The person in the shop you went into was either 1) rude or 2) SEN / learning disabled .
A previous poster commented that and that’s often the case .
i care for someone with SEN and I can see they might come across like that on occasion without meaning to

It's a legal requirement to do that, the charity has no option. Legally, if you sign up for gift aid they have to get in touch with you to tell you how much your donatons have raised. And if you haven't given them your email address, their only option is to write to you. I would contact the head office of the charity and ask to be switched onto email notifications and taken off their mailing list, any large charity will be happy to do this for you.

What are you talking about? It was me who first posted above about Retail Gift Aid.

they won't keep their volunterring job for long at that rate.....but as she said she is "running a business" I susopect that she is the shop manager and I understand they are often not volunteers but in paid employment.

You can't gift aid on just a postcode - it requires personal details so it can be linked to your tax - it isn't the ops personal info, it is her husband's.

I work in a charity shop and we are under enormous pressure to sign up /take donations that are gift aided. The volunteers I manage do range from shy students to adhd and autism. But all ask politely ‘Do you gift aid ?’
Im sorry you seem to have experienced a tactless volunteer.All charities from the National trust to your local charity shops all can claim 25 % tax back so the pressure is immense for each donated bag or item.

This thread shows how little is understood about Gift Aid.
I don't really quite understand it myself. I'm a non tax payer so I have never signed up.
But then I think a lot of people don't understand what charity shops actually want to sell - no they don't want your stained bedding and broken Christmas tree.

Can you imagine the amount of donations they get that are totally unsaleable?

Some people don't donate out of kindness, they want to use the charity as a free tip facility. And be thanked in the process. Obviously no one from MN would ever do this - hence the distaste of having your donations picked over.

It costs the charity valuable resources to get rid of all this rubbish and can be dangerous and unsanitary for volunteers.

We wouldn't pick over donations in front of customers but yes, many people donate stuff which is just not fit for sale and you do wonder what the hell they were thinking. Chipped mugs, worn out or ripped clothing, single shoes/socks, crusty pans, dolls with their heads missing, dried-up felt tip pens, tattered books, etc etc.

If something is in too poor condition to hand on to a neighbour or your best friend, how are we supposed to sell it?

You sign up for gift aid. It's the taxpayer that signs up, not their spouse!!!

Still you could just say you can't because you don't pay tax, that is the correct response, not implying there would be a way for her to get gift aid out of you if she had your husbands details.

I'd probably have just given name and address.

I have been told by my local charity shop that they get money per tonne on old unusable clothes so send in the worn stuff.

It still needs to be cost effective.
Gift Aid can be a significant boost to that.

So she’s running a cost-effective charity, still not a business.

I have been told by my local charity shop that they get money per tonne on old unusable clothes so send in the worn stuff.

This is true - but it is literally pennies per black bag. We have such limited storage space and the rag man only comes once a week that we can't cope with donations which are purely rags. Other charity shops with bigger storage areas may make different decisions. Personally, knowing the issues we have with storage, I would much rather people put the odd socks and ripped jackets in one of the roadside collection bags or supermarket recycling bins and just gave us the stuff which we can sell.

I do gift aid precisely because my tax money is diverted from the government.
My donations go to the local children’s hospice, which should be government funded. By signing up to gift aid, I am forcing the government to spend my tax where I want it to go.
I also set up gift aided direct debit donations to overseas charities when the government cut foreign aid.

Ah, you’ve had a wee misunderstanding, that maybe explains your strange overreaction! I’m not invested in a stranger at all, just replying to a comment on a public forum. Really no need for any more histrionics, I’m sure we’re both adults and have better things to do than argue like silly teenagers!

@ZenNudist charity shops indeed will take clothing that's only suitable for rags - but it makes their life so much easier if the person donating has pre sorted it and put in a bag labelled "rags".
So many people don't though - which is why they will sometimes check.

I wish I could believe that but something tells me you don’t.

I wish we had somewhere like this where I live, each charity shop seems to have it's own set of rules, the latest one, only 2 carrier bags at a time, one no books. I have tried a few and all 3 made me feel like a nuisance that I was dropping stuff off that they were then going to have to sort out - not sure what the answer is! I shall look further afield actually, out of my town.

only 2 carrier bags at a time, one no books.

Because we're dealing with so much crap which isn't fit for sale, and clutters up the back room until the waste guy comes to collect.