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I’ve said before that I don’t like having to travel up to London. Quite apart from the noise, dirt, the traffic and the inconvenience of it all, there are the charity touts that accost you at the entrances to railway stations across the capital.
I learn this morning that these touts are called ‘charity muggers’, and it is an apt term for they are difficult to avoid. Even to return a greeting will often result in an apparently harmless conversation that inevitably leads to a request for a donation. On the very few occasions I have shown an interest in the charity concerned, I’ve lost that interest as soon as it becomes clear that I would be required to sign a direct debit rather than hand over a bank note.
It is now revealed in a BBC investigation that even though charities pay huge sums annually to the private fundraising firms employing these ‘chuggers’, they often don’t see any of the money donated because the firms’ charges are so high. It also seems that some charities pay the chuggers £100 or more for every signature they collect but, because more than half of the donors cancel their direct debits before the end of the first year, they end up receiving less than they paid out.
It seems to me that there is a case here for the government to take a look at what is going on and, perhaps, to insist that charity collectors make it crystal clear whether they are collecting directly for a particular charity or for a private fundraising company.
That might clip the wings of the charity muggers!
.
I’ve said before that I don’t like having to travel up to London. Quite apart from the noise, dirt, the traffic and the inconvenience of it all, there are the charity touts that accost you at the entrances to railway stations across the capital.
I learn this morning that these touts are called ‘charity muggers’, and it is an apt term for they are difficult to avoid. Even to return a greeting will often result in an apparently harmless conversation that inevitably leads to a request for a donation. On the very few occasions I have shown an interest in the charity concerned, I’ve lost that interest as soon as it becomes clear that I would be required to sign a direct debit rather than hand over a bank note.
It is now revealed in a BBC investigation that even though charities pay huge sums annually to the private fundraising firms employing these ‘chuggers’, they often don’t see any of the money donated because the firms’ charges are so high. It also seems that some charities pay the chuggers £100 or more for every signature they collect but, because more than half of the donors cancel their direct debits before the end of the first year, they end up receiving less than they paid out.
It seems to me that there is a case here for the government to take a look at what is going on and, perhaps, to insist that charity collectors make it crystal clear whether they are collecting directly for a particular charity or for a private fundraising company.
That might clip the wings of the charity muggers!
.
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