Red Cross Hassle

[fraz]

We pay the red cross 13 quid a month dd. Phone call from them today wanting to double it to 26 quid . When they were told no way they tried for an extra 2 quid which then went down to 1 quid . What a disgusting way to operate are all charities like this or are some just grateful for the money they do get.

[pat]

I used to pay DD to several charities but got sick fed-up of continually being hassled for "that little bit extra". After explaining several times to the said charities and writing to confirm my stance when they again contacted for increases I cancelled donations completely - one I stopped 6 years ago, have been sending me a thankyou/extra begging letter every year since, for the last 3 I have returned them marked 'gone away'.
This charity obvious takes no heed of who is donating and who is not and also ignoring returned mail.
If a charity is wasting its donated money so negligently it does not need my donations.

[2little2late]

They phoned me too on Thursday. A couple of months ago the knocked on my door. They have a way of drawing you in. I signed up for dd. I cancelled it soon afterwards. When they called me on Thursday they begged me for £8 pcm, then £4, then £2 then £1. It's absolutely terrible they give you these sob stories. Anyway, they are getting absolutely nothing from me. My donations will remain with the local charity shop.

[Big Gaz]

When i was a student in Leeds many moons ago, i was signed up to be a charity collector in the university. I canvassed the uni students and went out to set pitches in the city centre too. It wasn't just Red Cross though, many other charities used these people to raise funds for them. For everyone that i got to sign up for a direct debit (minimum £5-10 per month) i got £10 and a further £10 if they agreed to a 2/3 year DD (if i remember right). I also did the phone calling too when it was too wet to go out canvassing. In this case i was trying to get people to pay more, or in new cases, set up direct debits for "as much as you can screw them for!" (exact words of the Nigerian supervisor i worked under) The phone calls that resulted in a direct debit paid me anything from £8 to £20 per DD depending on the charity and if i got someone to up their payments, i got paid 1/2 the raised amount (i.e if i got them from paying £10pm to £20pm, i got £5. In some cases i recognised the name/phone number and knew they were an easy sell and that i would have another £5-10 or so with that call. I was also asked if i recognised a persons information (we had many lists to work from) then i was to mark that persons name with an asterisk so they could do more specific targetting on them over the next few months. I also had a "sales" target in that if i made £1000 a week in new income then i would be paid an extra £20 on top of what i had already earned. Thus on a good week i could easily make £250 for maybe 10-12 hours work and for the short time i did it, i made in excess of £1000 which really helped with my studies and although the entire process is legal, i had problems with the ethics and quit. Im ashamed now that i did it but at the time i was only interested in making some cash to live on and get through my student days without too much debt.

[fraz]

After discussion with my family I think they can kiss goodbye to our donation. I never realised our dd started off at 10 quid then we foolishly upped it to 13 when they previosly phoned us, about ten months after we started donating. Makes you Question where most of the money is going.

[telfordstar]

Id have it cancelled! charities should be thankful for what they get!

[Alrock]

I personally find it a sad state of affairs that there is such a reliance on charities these days...
If it was a truly fair society there would be no need for them as all the hard work done by them should be paid for out of taxes.