You are right about that. I wish I hadn't binned them now, I should have just returned it without a stamp.

I feel the same way about these continual telly adverts wanting your £2 or £3 a month. They seem to be on telly almost 24x7 and if they can afford that at the cost of TV advertising then they aren't getting my dosh to pay for advertising.

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Lets be careful out there !

The title of this topic is 'Tolerance 2014 Style' but one thing that really irritates me are the charity 'chuggers' that try to ambush you in the street, usually over-enthusiastic young people trying to engage you with cheerful banter but whose real objective is to sign you up for regular payments to a particular charity. I'm sometimes tempted to be very rude to them.
I'm beginning to sound like some old moaning git aren't I but I'm not anti-charity, I do give to certain specific charities of my choosing, but some of the large charities do need to look at their revenue raising activities.

My son set up a direct debit with 2 x charities in an unsolicited act of giving. One was Centrepoint (for homeless young people). He motives were that he was blessed with supportive friends, family and lived in a comfortable home, and he couldn't imagine what it would be like to have none or few of the above.

But almost a soon as his first payment was made, he was flooded with spam emails, and annoying calls (up to 3 a day!) to his mobile and landline, from Centrepoint (wanting even more £££s) and a whole load of other charities who Centrepoint had obviously sold or shared his details with.

He got so frustrated, that within 6 months, he cancelled the direct debit and vowed to have nothing to do with the charity sector in the future

On another occasion, my wife and I allowed ourselves to be 'chugged' by 'volunteers' from a charity who my wife worked for and of curse, knew lots about. Obviously these volunteers were paid staff (commission) and came out with inaccuracies bordering on fraud in order to get us to open our wallet.

When my wife revealed who she was and accused them of telling a pack of lies to defraud people and risk damaging the charities reputation, they got annoyed and aggressive. Apparently, we had been wasting their time!! I had noted one of the names from the ID card around one of their necks and had taken a photo of both of them. This information was given to the charity's head office and copied to the charity commission.

It really is about time charities were regulated and controlled more strictly than they are now. Some enjoy, manipulate and downright abuse the public's trust and it cant go on as its damaging the good work most of them do

I went shopping in Harrow last month and the chuggers were everywhere. My stock response to them from the outset is that if they want my name, address or bank they have no chance as they are all private.

Because I have the routine off pat and I'm serious with my delivery they pursue it no further.

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Lets be careful out there !

An interesting article in today's Mail on Sunday on charities ....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... endas.html

It is INTENSELY annoying when one charity passes on your details to others and you get flooded with junk mail. It's a betrayal of your generosity towards them.

What I always thought and why I don't participate any more, especially the street chuggers and door knockers.

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Lets be careful out there !

Charities have now become businesses in all but name - we've left the Victorian concept of charity a long way behind unfortunately. It's a pity that the Charity Commission and/or the government doesn't sort out the abuses in this sector. Long overdue in my opinion.