To not sign up to charity donations at the door.

[iMum]

A very nice, gift of the gab man just rang my (door)bell to ask me to sign up to weekly donations to the NCDS (national deaf childs association) he had an ID of sorts and with him 1 direct debit form and 1 leaflet/pack of stickers that he would only leave with me if I signed up.

I would love to support a charity like this one but I dont feel comfortable giving out my bank account details alongside address date of birth etc. So I declined.

I mentioned that I would go online and check out the charity and perhaps donate that way but he said the charity then loose 30% of it to admin costs?

Am I wrong to not want to give this info out at the door to by all intents and purposes a genuine charity caller, is this info already readily available to anyone who looks anyway?

I felt very mean but am so cautious-maybe too much?

I hate the 'do you care about kids with cancer' line too. Its been used on me several times and it always upsets me. What the hell am I supposed to answer? I always end up blurting out about DD and the response is usually very upsetting - they sort of ignore it with a bland smile.

I had a bloke come to my door a few weeks ago and he really annoyed me. He flashed a badge at me and said he was collecting for children with cerebral palsy. Of course I care about children with disabilities but I do not give strangers money at my door. I told him so. He said 'but its only a couple of pounds' he had a bag full of metal badges. I said no again, I already give to certain charities (I raise money for clicsargent and the teenager cancer trust). Its not that I would never give money to any other charity but I was trying to get rid of him. The bloke just would not take no for an answer! He kept going on about disabled children, didnt I care, its only a little bit of money. I had to shut the door on him!

I emailed the charity to ask them to confirm they were collecting on this day and never recieved a reply.

A while back I was approached on behalf of 'Victims of Domestic Abuse'. At that time I worked for Women's Aid so I phoned around the network and whilst many groups reported having seen the collectors in their area, only one group had any contact with them. They had donated a load of used blankets 'for the refuge' (which had long since abandoned blankets, switching to duvets. Out of courtesy, the group had sent a standard Thank You letter, which was then featured in this 'Charity's' literature. I contacted the police, who investigated and discovered the famous Patron had never heard of them, etc.etc. The head of the charity was prosecuted and banned from running any further charities.

About a year later, same collectors, same tins, same style of leaflets and badges but this time collecting for 'Victims of Cot Death' (think about it!). Contacted Police again, they rounded up the probably totally innocent collectors immediately. Turned out this Charity's boss was the wife of the man who was barred.

It is so sad that these crooks have left people dubious about genuine Charity fund raisers. I have 3 charities which I support, with time and money and salve my concience when I say NO to others by giving my ones a little extra.

What were they doing with all teh blankets granny?

Or have i missed something?

Chegirl it is a very good point that so many people have had their lives touched by severe illness and tragedy that to have strangers wave it in your face on the highstreet/doorstep every 5 minutes is stressful and unpleasant.

Chegirl - I saw your comments about losing your DD on another thread (the one about the stupid journalist who said she loved her DH more than her DCs) I thought what you wrote hit the nail on the head beautifully and said it all about maternal love and loss. What you've written above explains, I guess, how you lost her. I am so very very sorry.

With the charity thing, surely this kind of emotional blackmail is likely to put most people off supporting a charity, however worthwhile. It seems so low and also potentially very upsetting, intrusive and insensitive.

We had the Red Cross knock at our door one night when I was pregnant and in my PJs dressing gown (it was only about 7pm) I hoisted myself up from the sofa (no mean feat), flung open the door and glared at the woman who beat a very hasty retreat, saying 'I'll leave now shall I?' I only found out who they were and what they wanted from our neighbour. I must have looked very scary indeed!

Was very once when St John's Ambulance asked me to contribute to buying a local defibrilator. When I said no thank you I was told in a v disapproving tone that my neighbours had been very generous. I said 'well you have plenty of money then so you dont need any from me' and shut the door in their face.

Should add that I actually do give a fair amount of money to charity I just object to people knocking on my door to ask for it.... esp given some of the things people have said above about questioning the validity and the possibility of causing upset etc

I only give through work - my firm matches anything that the employees give so it doesn't make any sense to do it any other way.

I found this when my husband nearly made the mistake of going for an interview with this company and I was doing some research on them. It took a while to find but he saved wasting his time!

It's long but skim down to para 26(ish) starting "immediately my mind went to the charities, just how much are they forking out for this service"

Directly lifted from the link Aussieng posted.....
This is pretty much word for word what the guy said to me

Barry's tactic is to knock on the door. When the person opens the door (if they do), he says, chuckling, 'hello, have you had a nice day?' then 'don't worry, we're not as bad as we look, we're doing some work in the local area for blind people (pointing at his 'chugger' vest, with the words 'Action for the Blind' printed on it). 'We're not collecting today, don't worry... do you know anyone who is blind or partially sighted? You can imagine how hard it can be to do the little things we take for granted, like reading, writing or making a cup of tea... it can be very scary. So I take it you think what we are doing today is a good thing?' to which they invariable answer 'yes'.
'There is a catch to what we are doing' Barry confesses, 'we need to raise ¨£6000 per week so that the charity can carry on its good work... Now we're not asking you to donate all of that, though it would be nice if you would!' (chuckle). 'We're just asking everyone to chip in a very small amount'. The next bit is said very quickly indeed. 'We're asking you to-in-
about-four-or-five-weeks-time-to-chip-in-something-small-like-
one-pound-fifty-at-the-end-o f-each-week-for-as-long-as-you-want-to...
we have just a very simple form to fill out, it all goes directly through the bank, because nobody wants to see my face round here every week!' (chuckle). 'This way you can be sure all the money goes directly to the charity and so the government also contribute via Gift Aid. So what we're doing today is just filling out a very simple form, so I guess I can count you in on this one - have you got a flat surface to fill out the form?'

BBBB - IIRC the mountain of blankets had resulted from their previous collection on behalf of 'child victims in Romania'. They were only interested in the money and looking for somewhere to offload the pesky donated blankets.

BBBB Me and other parents (grammer?) used to get regularly chugged around the hospital. We would be nipping out for food etc and get asked 'what do you know about childhood cancer?' well quite a lot really you fecking moron.

I do not believe the company did not know one of the countries leading childhood cancer units was a few metres away.

twinman Thank you. I always get such lovely comments about my DD on mumsnet. I do appreciate every one

country's !

chegirl that is so shit. they really have no shame. do you think they were doing it on purpose? setting up there i mean?

granny thanks - I thought they were blagging blankets off people and there was some money-spinning blanket thing that i was failing to grasp...

I never, ever do this after our friends at Greenpeace accidentally took £500 by direct debit instead of £5. I really, really object to anyone knocking on my door about anything. Guy knocked the other night for the charity OP mentioned. He said' are any of your children deaf? When i said no, he said arent you lucky? Got no further as by this time he was talking to a closed door.

I have charities that i give to, some of them via envelopes through the door(eg sally army) but i wont give by DD,

Oh I dont know. Maybe? I think they certainly saw it as an opportunity. Maybe they thought a hosptial was fertile ground for 'caring' people. I'd like to think they didnt target the site because it had a children's oncology unit. It would be a bloody stupid move because childhood cancer makes you skint. (well most longterm illnesses I would imagine).

It was the glazed 'I am not listening, just waiting for you to stop talking' expression they gave you when you tried to politely explain the situation.

Like if you said 'I am sorry but my child has cancer and we really cant manage anything at the moment' and they would say 'oh should I get someone to call you at a more conveinent time'

Arrrgghhh!

risingstar how on earth do they think that sort of approach is going to do anything other than totally put people off the charity.

Stupid sod.

I'm surprised the hospital allowed it.

That is really shitty.

imum - that speil you posted is almost word for word what a guy collecting for British Red Cross said to me a couple of months ago

Spooky.....

I was narked that he wittered on about our lovely neighbourhood blah blah (council estate!)

He wittered on about collecting up loose change during the week that could then be donated to charity - then mentioned the direct debit form

How exactly loose change is useful with a direct debit I have no idea

Surely giving out bank details isn't risky.you do it every time you write a cheque or pay by card

yes, but writing a cheque or giving your switch card to a cashier in a shop, when you know who and what you are paying for, is different to giving it to a person on the doorstep who could be anyone claiming to be from anywhere

i always decline politely, and say i will not give my details on the doorstep. i always ask if they are going to want my bank details before they get into their spiel, to save their time

I experienced a pushy knob from the National Deaf Childrens Society. I signed up to give £5 a month just to get rid of him. After about a year I decided to cancel the direct debit (was having probs with random direct debits on my account so tried to dwindle payments down to identify where the problem was), when I called up and told them what I intended they put me on hold for 20 mins!! I called back, and the same thing happened again. So being the cunning fox I am I called back and told them I wanted to increase the amount I was donating, lo and behold I got transferred straightaway.

Told them I wanted to stop and was then made to feel like a prick - "but Miss X £5 can buy a child xxx" and "Its only the price of a couple of beers, anyone can afford that, even you " so to shut him up I said I was going to donate the £5 a month to the RSPCA. He gave me the obligatory "you think animals are more deserving than humans then?" crap. I just said that after his attitude he has made me wonder if thats the case and put the phone down.

Believe it or not they called me back the week after to ask if I had changed my mind! I said yes I have, I now give £10 a month to the RSPCA and will donate to the NDCS if I ever see them about in town I'll donate then.

Shame really as if it hadn't been for his attitude I probably would have reactivated the direct debit once the bank issue was sorted.

Lots of people have said it's spooky how chuggers (good word, by the way!) all say the same thing. It's a trained script of course. As I work in psychology I can see straight through them pretty much instantly as to which buttons they're trying to press, and frankly it's insulting to anyone's intelligence.
The last time one called, I was insulted and verbally abused and it got quite ridiculous. She was even peering through into my house and sizing up what things were worth, and 'oh, I see you have two kids' and 'ah, you dye your hair don't you, how much does THAT cost you each month?!' And so on until the sound of a door being firmly shut.
When I signed up to a genuine charity that I BELIEVED deserved the donation the guy told me that he was paid and he was part of a third-party organisation because that way the charity keeps its overheads down by not employing people when they're not doing a push for donations... unsure how to feel about that, and I agree with a previous poster that doing this could lead to these people being pushy and disconnected from the charity itself, but at the end of the day in this case, I believed in the charity and still donate as I strongly believe in what it works towards. NOT because someone fake and pushy was trying to manipulate me by pushing psychological buttons!

But no, I'm always wary of giving out my bank details etc. And I would NEVER give details by phone, however arsy they get and oh boy do they

Maybe the option is to say "i already donate to your charity, but due to your attitude i think I'll take my money elsewhere".

I wonder if the charitied know just how these 3rd party types operate. They don't care about the charity, just about signing you up. So like any cold calling hard sell type person, they can get very nasty when you say you're not interested.

My general view is that once they put the pressure on to donate you shouldn't. I hate that sort of thing - it really gets on my nerves.

It does really annoy me, the thought of people going door to door. My dear old mum is just such a mug in this situation, she just wouldn't say no and would invite them in for tea and sign up to just about anything.

We've warned her so many times about letting people in, but she just doesn't want to come across as rude to other people. She got into all sorts of trouble with gas people and elec people etc.

I do hope no chugger would take advantage of her. Am going to have to have a chat with her later today just to make sure she's aware of this type of thing.

PuppyMonkey very good point, and sometimes when you have to just say 'sorry but NO.', well the older generation often don't like to do that...it's not how they were brought up. My in-laws are that way too and have recently been completely fleeced when buying a mobility scooter
Bad enough with elec/gas/tv package people, but when it's charity as well...

Also agree with BigBellasBB, and would say -report the pushy ones to their charity (unless they have a premium rate number)