talkmagic.co.uk

This is precisely the reason why I hate these people. And the same reason why I have no time for unsolicited calls to my front door. My wife thinks I can be a bit rude and perhaps I can be at times, but don't come to my house or try and stop me in the street and think you can intimidate or embarrass me into giving you money. Because it won't work. Now get off my property before I set the Rottweilers on your sorry behind.

And before anyone says anything, I already give money to charity; the funds are deducted from my wage every month so I know the money is going to my chosen charity. I don't give money or personal details to people in the street and if they don't like my response to their attempts at getting cash off me, they can go and jump. Preferably off a very tall building.



EDIT: And don't get me started on Jehovah's witnesses. I despise these preachers and almost as much as those annoying charity types. For a while now I have started telling Jehovah's witnesses that I worship Satan. You'd be surprised how quickly they suddenly have to be going. Good riddance.

A friend of mine works part time for a charity doing data analysis, and one of his jobs is to analyse the income into the charity from various sources. The point was to anticipate when the charity was going to be low on funds and determine when and what sort of fund raising or advertising would be the most effective at different times.

Anyway, obviously the topic of people in bibs came up in conversation, and he had some interesting thoughts on this. He told me that he'd applied "Survival Analysis" to this problem, crunched the numbers and discovered that there was no significant return to the charity for anyone's donations for the first year, since this would be swallowed up by paying the agency. The only way it would actually provide an income would be if people kept the direct debit going after the first year. However there was such an alarming drop off of people cancelling that his advise to his bosses was that this form of fund raising was ineffective.

Of course we all knew that!

As most of us on TM now seem to own Reality Is Plastic then why not just give them a friendly handshake!

Maybe its time to save details of another charity which has annoyed you into your phone. Next time they pester you give them a phone number and email from a rival charity.

Hodgkinson wrote:As most of us on TM now seem to own Reality Is Plastic then why not just give them a friendly handshake!

40 DK Points to whomever actually manages to do this...

(DK Points are a non-redeemable scoring system for awesomeness comparison only. No refunds.)

I decided a while back that I wanted to give to charity regularly, by direct debit. I was in town so I actively sought out one of these guys to take my details etc. (that confused them!), it was for Red Cross.

Later that day I was talking about it with a friend who then proceeded to tell me very much the same sort thing that tiw has said; that these people work for agencies which in whatever way costs the charity a fare bit to employ. He'd had a friend who had worked as one of these collectors, but actually quit soon after he started because he decided it was unethical!!!

It must be better than nothing otherwise the charity wouldn't use them, but the message is, if you want to give to charity, go online and set up a direct debit with the charity themselves.

I cancelled

I think part of the problem is that 98% of people would never think of doing regular FREE charity work, so the charities end up with these paid 'volunteers'

I used to do a lot of charity work but dont do a lot now. One of the reasons is that they simply lean on you constantly once they find out that they can make money from you. Myself and a friend raised over £2,000 for a local charity to provide a fitted disabled-friendly bathroom. 2 weeks later, they came back to us saying they wanted more!!!! (for tiles, allegedly )

I support a local hospice, animal shelter and a couple of other charities. I usually raise money for them by doing things like fire walks, sponsered fun runs ect as I dont have that much to give myself

Replicant wrote:
EDIT: And don't get me started on Jehovah's witnesses. I despise these preachers and almost as much as those annoying charity types. For a while now I have started telling Jehovah's witnesses that I worship Satan. You'd be surprised how quickly they suddenly have to be going. Good riddance.

Invite them in for a cup of tea and a chat. Once you've sat down, get out your tarot and offer to give them a free reading. "You'll no be wanting a top up before ye go?"

That's really shocking, Lommy. I've worked for Age Concern in the past (which is shortly to merge with Help The Aged) so I'm all for those charities, but these commision-hungry butt-holes really give them a bad name.

The fact he asked you how you'd feel if your granny was broken into is truly disgusting. If I'd been in charge of anyone like that they'd immediately be dismissed.

You ever notice how they seem to hone in on you from the whole street away. The other pedestrians seem to be in on it and move exactly the way you dont want them to. You have no human shield and nowhere to run to.

The place i work in does lots of stuff for charities so i tell them that, or the truth which is usually ' IM ON A LUNCH BREAK ', or ' IM DOUBLE PARKED '. Im usually stressed to the hilt anyway, and i think they can see it in my red eyes.

If I need to go to town but am seriously not in the mood, I wear an old tattered leather biker jacket, a serious scowl, and I walk in a way that says "if you try to stop me you'll be torn in two".

Works for Big Issue vendors as well as sh*tty little school kids

My best anecdote regarding the JWs comes from a guy I used to know in Edinburgh. His name was Spider - that's what everyone called him anyway - and he worked in a piercing shop. Needless to say, he was covered in tattoos and piercings. He was also about seven foot tall, eight foot wide and had had long red dreds...

And he was a thoroughly decent bloke - I assume that he still is, but this story's about eighteen years old now, and I've since moved way down south.

Anywho, Spider was cooking dinner when the doorbell rang. Expecting it to be a bunch of friends, he answered it immediately, with no thought to the fact that he was still carrying a large carving knife.

When greeted with a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses, Spider's response was simple:

"Come in! You're just in time! We're having real problems holding the virgin down!



And on the subject of street charity workers, I've found that honesty is the best policy:

1. I work freelance
2. Some months I make a decent living
3. Other months I don't
4. I can't therefore, agree to fixed monthly payments, because I need to keep my fixed monthly payments to a minimum

And then the conversation killer:
If you were rattling a tin, I'd happily put something in it, but you're not

So far it's served me well.



Pete

Dave's suggestion last night was to talk at them in some strange language and pretend not to speak any English.

I have literally said to them before "sorry mate, i dont speak english"



No need for accents, just say it

How about the Derren Brown thing ' My wall isnt four foot high ' or ' My Dad doesnt speak Spanish '. Discombobulate them.