Poppy seller commits suicide

This strikes a chord; my almost 100 year old Aunt receives dozens of 'begging' letters from charities, in fact her main complaint is that the only mail she receives is from these people. Luckily she is able to discriminate and chooses the recipients wisely and is not unduly bothered by the others - they go in the bin. I can understand how an elderly person would be very upset to be bombarded by these demands. How sad for this lovely lady and how sad that her family did not step in and help before she took that ultimate step. The sadness of her husband's death combined with the added worry of the charity demands was all too much for her to bear.

I buy Xmas cards and gifts a goodish amount every year from the Leukaemia Research charity and give donations twice a year on my sons birthday and the date of his death, he died of Leukaemia and it pleases me that treatment has improved mortality so much over the years and like to think my money has contributed to that. I am also sponsoring a child through school in Uganda who wouldn't have an education without sponsorship. I pay a one off payment once a year and also sent smaller amounts at Easter and Christmas for her to have a gift from me, it is a Christian run charity.

I've decided over the years to only give to charities that mean somethIng to me as there are so many to choose from. I do give to collectors in the street but this only amounts to coinage which I don't miss. I don't like aggressive marketing and have been annoyed when charities have sent small gifts through the post in the hope I will donate especially when the amounts suggested on the form are quite large and I wouldn't be able to afford that every month. They should all have a rethink and be more charitable in their own thinking.

after reading all these posts and of the death of that lovely lady....is it now not time that our so called "Powerful Government" addressed this issue! of Charities bombarding everyone and using forceful tactics.

When we give money to charity, we know it's a drop in the ocean but like to feel it will be used properly, it takes all pleasure away from giving , to someone elderly to then be bombarded with calls and letters, and makes them feel they are not doing enough.This old lady's family say that she was worried about health problems, perhaps fearing a long hospital stay so this is more like the reason, if she did commit suicide, for her to do it.She seemed a very practical person, and for her, it may have been the easy 'clean' answer.if, as Soutra says, it was really what happened.

I did not hear this, but apparently there was a young lady on the Jeremy Vine programme yesterday who worked for one of these call centres employed by charities to target people by phone. When she said to one caller who told her she already donated to a different charity:
"Oh that’s fine, I’m really sorry for bothering you, I hope everything goes well”, my supervisor came over to me and said “Why did you just let that call go? You should have kept going, you should have kept pressing her, kept pressing her”.
"I quit after two or three weeks because of the practices of where I was working and the fact they actively encouraged us to harangue people and hound them and not take no for an answer and you had certain targets to meet and if you didn’t meet those targets you’d lose your job."

Charities have contracted out marketing to these aggressive call centres and marketing companies. Data is passed from one to another and they are targeting the vulnerable.

One friend of mine, who is 80, donated by direct debit to the Red Cross, a quite reasonable monthly amount. However, she was targeted by one of these cold callers who tried to get her to more than double the amount she was paying, and was extremely persistent. In the end she cancelled her direct debit altogether.

I'm afraid in this day and age it puts you off giving to charity...like so many who have written here..we have donated to a few of the "bigger" charities...and they do nothing but hound for more money...with phone calls, and letters...what a complete waste of resource money.

Some of the charities send out unnecessary and meaningless "gifts"..the Red Cross being one. I get so cross that any money I may have donated is going towards this rubbish....I bet most people bin it and that makes me sad. I donated once to RNIB and recieved a glossy magazine..must have cost thousands to produce and send out...same with Barnardos.
It does sound so bad of me to have a moan as all charities need such help, but I do wish they would stop mis-spending our donations....and stop begging.

As for the poor lady who has just died..I do believe that they found various letters from her about how she has been feeling ... she just couldn't say "no" to any begging charities and apparently had 27 direct debits on the go.....she felt completely hounded and so therefore they believe that she had suicide in mind. R.I.P lovely lady