AIBU to feel harassed by charity chuggers targeting women in public?

[Bertiebiscuit]

I'm so sick of male charity chuggers, i watch them always bear down on older lone women - the "Dorothy Donor" stereotype is still operating i guess- i am on a fixed income, cannot afford to give money to charities, although I'm a regular buyer in charity shops and always donate goods when i have a clear out. As if i would give out my card details in public anyway, they must think we're stupid! And all that fake "charming" act they put on - hello 'young' lady, i like your hat/coat/haircut blah blah 🤮. Long story short i ignore them and march past,but lately several have felt they can shout snarky comments as i walk away, basically is amounting to street harassment,bog standard male bullsh*t and entitlement. I confess that the most recent one i gave him the finger. I feel as though I'm just prey, as women and girls always seem to be, and it makes me furious.

Well, yes, I don't disagree with that. However, I find if I'm polite but firm towards them, then they are generally polite back.

But why even stop to engage to begin with. Just walk past with a firm 'no'.

It's probably them being nasty and ableist rather than having any care for more vulnerable people.

As well as the horrifyingly-common idea that some people have that needing to use a wheelchair automatically makes you a stupid non-person who is unable to think, reason or communicate, he likely assumed that she's on benefits and so wouldn't be ripe for the plucking; or might waste his time.

If anybody doesn't believe me, watch next time you see a wheelchair user out with an able-bodied companion. See which of them other people automatically speak to and which of them they often totally ignore.

It’s not happening “often”. I am saying it DOES happen as have multiple people in this thread.

You seem to not want to believe this just because it hasn’t happened to you which I find rather strange. I’ve never been spat at whilst jogging but I read an article by a woman saying it had happened to her and several other women.

I am able to accept that just because something hasn’t happened to me personally doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened other women 🙄.

Exactly! No means no.

i shouldn’t have to give some long winded speech about how lovely their charity is and why I can’t donate and good luck etc etc just to have my “no thank you” respected.

Good grief 🙄 ridiculous. No thank you is perfectly polite and enough

If you need CPR, you’re also probably not going to be the person giving it either 😁

It isn't simply that I don't believe it because it hasn't happened to me. It is rather the case that I have seen chuggers who have been perfectly polite to me being quite rude/overly persistent with people who have chosen to take a different approach to them. And from what I've observed, there is a pattern.

I'm not saying that it could never happen that someone is perfectly pleasant and polite and still gets shit chucked back at them, but it is certainly a whole lot less likely and I have never seen that happen. And no, rudeness from the general public doesn't justify rudeness or poor behaviour from the chuggers, but that isn't really the point that I'm making.

They have sites in a town where they are permitted. Make sure you know where these are. Just north of the market around a statue in my local town. So - avoid the designated area.

It’s the ones that knock at the door which annoy me the most. I always say ‘I’m sorry but I don’t donate to charities who do door-to-door as I find it really intrusive’ but some are still so persistent.

Chuggers harass everyone. They’re a pest. But, as an older woman, I don’t feel singularly targeted by them.

Yes, whenever people say "They're only doing their job", it's worth stopping to think about what their job actually is. They're looking for somebody to sign up to make a payment to THEM for the next 6 or 12 months, by using the excuse of some charity that they've been randomly assigned.

Most of them don't care whether the charity actually ends up getting anything at all, as they know that many people will cancel after a few months. They may even have a contract whereby they're guaranteed to get the first 12 months of agreed donations for themselves, so if the donor cancels after 2 months, the charity could find themselves having to stump up the remaining 10 months of payments to them from charity funds - so the unwitting result of your signing up under their pressure and coercion can be to COST the charity a significant amount of money.

Any of them that pull the "You obviously don't care about children/blind people/the planet/donkeys" line manifestly don't care about them either themselves - if they did, they would be volunteering to raise money for them and wouldn't be trying to line their own pockets by invoking the cause as an excuse.

I hate it. One asked me ‘excuse me but do you like dogs’ and when I replied ‘I’m sorry I’m not interested’ he replied ‘oh so you don’t like dogs <mock horror>’. My son was upset - ‘mummy why did you not say you like dogs’
I was furious.

I don’t think charities should be allowed to ‘cold call’ at homes or in the street. Yes they can have a collection box (usually not allowed anymore) or a little stall with banners etc that people can approach but I don’t think they should be approaching people

The attempt to find a conversation you know very well is not like they care or want... I tried to be nice because they were just doing their job.

I dislike the ones who stand outside of our local co-op, I have a slight quilt of feeling zero guilt for ignoring them 😂

We have been donating monthly for the last 20 years plus, we prefer to choose our charities.

I can't for the life of me understand why supermarkets allow them to block the entrance/exit with their stall and annoy people who are trying to do their shopping.

It wouldn't be so bad if they just stood quietly to the side, so that donors could approach them if they wanted to give; but they never do that - they always call out to people passing by and put them on the spot to decline.

It's annoying enough when they have British Gas, conservatory or will-writing firms there who approach you, but it doesn't carry any of the same social sense of being 'a bad person' if you say "No thanks" to an obvious commercial company (one that isn't trying to make you think that they're a charity) touting for business.

No, what you actually said was that you'd 'target' the good looking men. Which is a bit bunny boiler/ stalkerish.

Charities and their third-party agents have definitely seen the same lucrative bandwagon that many of the big companies have - whereby they make much more money from getting people to 'subscribe' and pay automatically every single month in perpetuity rather than making a one-off purchase/donation - and leaped right on it.

It will be interesting to see if the new law coming in next year to make it quicker and less obstructive to cancel monthly subscriptions will also include charity donations. I know they're semantically different things, but they have a great deal in common - especially when they're 'sold' to you with pressure by a salesperson, rather than you contacting them yourself of your own volition.

Charity fundraisers subject to new rules - BBC News https://share.google/lvuTO2QBA2P8BMWtk

Take a photo of them and report. They get fined quite heavily.

My late DM used to say that once she reached the age of 60,chuggers didn't bother her any more. She said that she probably didn't fit their demographic (assuming that older people didn't have money to spare). However,I am 62 and I still get pestered by these people! (Not a stealth boast,I don't look particularly young for my age!). Thankfully there doesn't seem to be such a proliferation of them in my local high street nowadays,up until a couple of years ago they were everywhere, every day. I think I was a good target for them as I walk so slowly, being disabled. If I encounter one now,I just say 'No thank you' and keep walking. Thankfully,I've never had one being really persistent, although I know it does happen.

Those rules sound like a good start but I do wonder how many reports will get ignored if you can't prove it and how many people will report the issues

We have been donating monthly for the last 20 years plus, we prefer to choose our charities.

This is 100% it, surely. Most of us have causes that are close to our hearts, but we can only spare a certain amount to give in aid of them. Why on earth would any of us choose how to direct our charitable giving based on who accosts us in the street with their suggestion?

"Why would I? They're probably Elon Musk's..." 😉

Then I dont know why you keep insisting that we must have said "no" incorrectly or in some kind of weird way to elicit rudeness or being called a bitch or whatever insult is thrown at us.

How on earth can "no thank you" be said in such a manner that it deserves rude insults back? blimey.

I think if you are deliberately hassling people and not listening to their polite "no thank you" then frankly, you deserve a fuck off. People wouldnt have to resort to that if they just backed off and respected people's answers

Haha that’s only just dawned on me 😂

I had one of these chuggers come up to me with similar, telling me I look friendly to which I replied ‘well looks can be deceiving!’

seriously I know we all have to earn a living but you need some thick skin to do this kind of job, especially in poor weather. However, I prefer to support charities directly and donate to charity shops than sign up with direct debits to paid chuggers.

I imagine a very loud "get away from me you pervert!" might also be quite effective.