Have you experienced hard sell by any of the big charities?

We have a Charities Aid Foundation account into which we pay a monthly amount of our choice. The CAF reclaims the tax for Gift Aid (if applicable) and take a contribution for their expenses and one for the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (think that's it, but don't have a statement by me). You can use it by Charity Cheques, a book of which they supply or by donating through their website. Either way, you can donate anonymously, which means the charity you want gets the amount you want to send them but they don't know who you are so they can't get you to ask for more !! It's great to be relieved of the constant appeals you get from some charities - I'm sure we can all name some of the offenders. I would definitely recommend it.

We were selling some charity raffle tickets at work, and I bought one each for my husband and myself and one for each of my two daughters. My girls now live away from home, but for ease I just put our home address on their counterfoils. A week later, four identical letters from that Charity, addressed separately to each of us landed through the letter box asking for donations and as my daughters' letters came to our address I know the information could only have come from the counterfoils. I do feel this is a sneaky way of collecting contact details which is then used to contact potential donors. I now only put my telephone number on counterfoils for raffle tickets. I have often been tempted to buy Christmas cards, etc from charity catalogues, but am reluctant to do so for this reason.

And many of the small ones are not wealthy, because they can't afford the outlay that the bigger ones can spend on publicity and fundraising.

So if you can, find a smaller local charity that helps with the problems that you are interested in, and give directly to them.

Thanks phoenix, did not have a clue, except an awareness that many charities are fabulously wealthy.

My FIL receives envelopes with free gifts of woolly hats, calico bags, coins to name but a few from all kinds of charities. I am going to try to get the names of the Charities causing him the most distress and I am going to go complain, it cant go he is starting to get very worried over the fact he cant increase his DD and feels he is letting people down.

Afraid so, johanna , it would seem to be the norm for many charities. Also, you may not be aware, but when phoning to order goods from charity catalogues, you are often calling a contact centre that serves more than one. They can tell which brochure you are ordering from by the number that you use to call them, hence they can answer "Good morning, RNLI/Dogs Protection/Save the Children/etc.

How funny,
I had a letter this morning from a very famous Charity, also wondering whether I would like to increase my direct debit which I have done for them for years.
Although the letter was polite, it still caused me to be irritated.
I never knew that agency's were used for this purpose.

In my days as Business Development Manager for a mystery shopping company, one of my clients was PFRA, the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association. Our mystery shoppers would report on the techniques used by "chuggers" (or on occasion those who doorstep to get direct debit donations). They take breaches of the code very seriously, and have the power to fine or de-register agencies who act outside of the agreed standards.

So you can complain about bad practice either to the charity concerned or to the PFRA.

My mother, who is losing her memory and gets increasingly worried by things that she would have coped with fine a few years ago, was getting monthly appeals from the Red Cross, which she often responded to (she was not giving amounts she can't afford). Recently she has been unwell and I phoned them to take her off their mailing list. It was an automated service, but easy to use, and it seems to have worked (touch wood) as there hasn't been another appeal in the past few weeks. I was impressed until we got 2 appeals ourselves this week from the Red Cross, unaddressed and containing 2 coasters, 2 cards and a pen each as well as the inevitable donation form. I regard this as blackmail and will not be donating but will keep the contents as they say not to return them but to recycle them if unwanted! Whose donation has paid for that?

As well he might vamps !!!!

I try to be polite to chuggers but one really wound me up. He wanted to sign me up...with my bank details of course....to a charity that fought against seal killing in Canada. I was polite. He continued to harrass me. I walked away. He followed me. I went into a shop. He was waiting for me outside. At that point I cracked and told him in no uncertain terms that if he didn't leave me alone I would go into the nearest travel agents, book a flight to Canada, personally club a seal pup to death and bring the blood soaked pelt back as a gift for him.

At this point he looked me in terror and ran away

glamma* Since the agency gets its income from the charities they are collecting from, it ultimately comes out of what is donated. There are probably economies of scale in sending out busloads of collectors. The charities get greater funds, and do not see the details of how it is paid for.

When amateurs do it, the costs borne by them, and invisible.

In fairness to the charities, it does become more difficult for them when the economy is not strong and everyone has less cash to give. A couple of scandals a few years ago, when money was found being diverted into people's bank accounts, did not help public comfidence and generosity.

There are as a result more stringent accounting rules in place, which did not always go down well with the honest local amateur collectors, who now had more paperwork to do, and felt mistrusted by both the charity and the public.

For instance a small charity that I was associated with lost some helpers who could not accept that when a can was opened there should be at least two people present, who should each count the contents separately and sign acknowledging the amount. Someone else used to hold a car boot sale with a notice saying that she shared the proceeds between two charities. When told that the auditors said she must state the proportion that would go to each, and have someone witness the divvying up, she stopped doing the car boot sales completely, saying it was too much red tape and distrust.

So several of the big charities farmed out the nitty-gritty to professionals.

We are plagued in our town with chuggers and it is like an olympic event trying to avoid them when shopping,we have now found out that they do not work after 3pm as they are from out of area and they are picked up by bus at 3.15pm and bussed back to where they all live 60+ miles away,who pays for this transport on a daily basis ? does it get charged to the Agency who employs the chuggers or does it come out of the donations that we make if we agree to join a particular charity ?

Can our reaction to these methods be atypical? Surely not. If other people feel the same way, will the bullying tactics eventually become counter-productive? I do hope so.

Well done Bags. go to the employer, don't waste your breath on the on-foot collector who is employed by an agent, not the charity itself.

I really think that the only way to stop them is to let the CHARITY know in no uncertain terms when the chuggers and phone pests are putting us off rather than being "effective" by bullying us into contributing - and try to give chapter and verse of date, time, place, and the name on the badge that the collector should be wearing, or should give you if it a phone call.

These fundraising firms exist to make money out of their commission from whatever they can wring out of Joe Public, so if they have a policy of squeezing hard they are not going to pay any attention when said Joe complains to THEM. If the charity is told often enough that their representatives are being counter-productive, it will dawn on them that they need to change their methods.

My 84-year-old SIL receives these calls several times a week. All she has is her State Pension and donates regularly to Cancer Research and has done since her own son died from the disease 5 years ago. She tells me that she tries to explain to them on the phone that she really cannot afford to send any more money to them, but of course this makes no difference at all. I've written to Cancer Research on her behalf asking them to deal with the problem calls but to no avail. Now, she's besieged by more and more 'begging letters' from different charities, asking for money. She now worries herself about the fact that she can't afford to give £19 per month to the Salvation Army(the amount they suggest!) tigers, donkeys and of course, more than anything, children who are starving. I hadn't realised that the charities use agencies for fundraising, Elegran. Maybe if I can explain that to my SIL, it will help her a bit.

We have had both the chuggers and the phone calls. If it is the chuggers I just continue on my way ignoring them. We do have monthly contributions to two children's charities. When the national one kept ringing up DH pointed out that when he did the monthly donation we were working and now pensioners and if they continued to ring us he would stop the payments - no further hassle.
The other one is very local to a childrens hospice - never had any calls etc from them. I get the occasional email telling about events and draws etc but not pressurised at all.
We have started to get calls here now in France about various things - Eco stuff mainly at the moment - I just keep speaking English and then say goodbye and hang up.
I do think we need to stop being polite to these people as they are not polite to us the way they just continue with their blurb.

You ought to tell the charity that story, absent.

Yes, both on the phone and from chuggers. Last week a chugger stopped me with the bit about all you have to do is send a text – a scandal exposed recently in the press. (The money sent goes straight to the commercial company which then tries to get you to sign up to direct debit payments to the charity.) He couldn't believe that he had picked probably the only woman in the whole town who a) doesn't have a mobile phone and b) doesn't know how to send a a text and has never sent one. I mean literally couldn't believe, so he called me a f*****g liar. I shan't be donating to that charity.

Yes, had exactly this from Oxfam bags. Was so annoyed I too stopped my monthly donation to them and now give to another similar charity.

I have done, glass – had the hard sell from charities. I hang up and write to the charity. In a couple of cases, where the charity in question then sought to justify the harassment by saying that it was "effective", I stopped my donations. Sometimes they have to learn the hard way that the end does not justify the means.

Only today I had 3 calls, all at inconvenient times. The first two, were incomprehensible but the third was a clear line. A lady, sounding Indonesian rather than Indian sub-continent, went into the speil about how grateful they - British Heart Foundation - were for my continuing support which was helping...blah, blah, blah. I could not get a word in until she got to the point of asking me for a one off donation for a Raffle. Tried to stop her and she got quite stroppy so I hung up.

Contact the charity itself and let them know about the way their agents are conducting their fundraising. It is probably being done by a professional firm who ge a percentage, and the charity trusts them until they are enlightened. They would most likely be horrified at the harm being done to their reputation. I have heard of charities changing their fundraising for this reason.