Charity pests in Stafford? AKA Chuggers

I also use many of these too - I try not to be mean, I've done volunteer charity work and in a number of jobs had to give out leaflet and samples and it's also horrid when someone is mean to you.

 

A short while after we moved into our current house there was a ring at the gate. I looked on the CCTV and it was clearly a salesman, who couldn't read the sign that is next to the bell push about no cold callers, so I didn't respond.

A couple of minutes later there was a knock at the door, which somewhat startled me. I went to the door to find salesman standing there having climbed over the locked gate.

I asked him what the hell he was doing and he responded, quite indignantly that he'd had to knock as nobody answered the bell and the gate was locked.

I suggested he leave immediately but he tried to sell his window crap anyway, at which point I called to Mrs p who was in the house to bring the shotgun (which we don't have).

Salesman duly left in a bit of a hurry.

Situation handled without the need to tell anyone to f off and salesman's rights not broken.

Job done.

 

I always try to be nice to shop workers, whatever the shop (even started off being nice and smily to the horrible little woman on the charity stall the other day, and wishing I hadn't...).
Son volunteered in a charity shop when he started in uni (only way then to gain retail experience, as every part time job he applied for wanted people with 'previous retail experience' ). He didn't stay too long though as lots of the customers were vile to him and the other volunteers. Even the manager , who was rather well paid for doing it, was so horrible to the younger volunteers . I witnessed that one day when I went in after he'd left to buy some jigsaws , rather shocking!

 

Youngest volunteered for a while for Katherine House. From what I can gather, he didn't have that nice an experience of it. He doesn't have an awful lot of confidence and it was suggested that by doing volunteer work, he would meet people on a limited basis and that would help. It didn't.

 

It appears the chuggers are clueless to people's attitudes to them. They are currently stretched out from Toni & Guy all the way up to Clinton Cards. No doubt caused by the market earlier in the day, but I reakon more behaviour like that and they'll end up banned from the town centre....

 

Would be no loss tbh.

 

There were loads of cops standing around when I walked back down that part this afternoon. The chuggers weren't hassling people so much at that time, so maybe been told off by the cops. I just got a "Hello Madam, how are you?" off the one of the chuggers.

 

I thought we were getting a rule about where they could chug? Any idea when that’s coming into play?

 

I was surprised to see them today after reading somewhere they were going to be banned ?? Obviously not yet ...
On my way up the high street, before the cops made an appearance , they seemed to have snared a few people. Actually thought to myself, my brother's ' Rottweiler' nickname for me must be more accurate than I thought, as I wasn't pestered by the chuggers....

 

It was UNICEF in town this week.

Bastards.

 

Well, people paid to canvas on behalf of UNICEF to make a profit for a private firm before UNICEF sees a penny. If you give a feck donate direct, never through a chugger.

 

Bingo. It often costs the charity a good two years or so of donations (what do they usually ask for? A fiver?) to “recruit” a donor through a chugger.

if you don’t intend on keeping it up for longer than however long it takes for the charity to turn a profit on the finder’s fee then you end up costing them money and only donating to a private firm

 

Son even said he'd had one knocking on his door in Worcester a few months ago. Then few weeks later I
was actually on the phone to son ( with his earphones in), when the doorbell sounded and I could hear the conversation with yet another one trying to get him to sign up.

 

Judging by the Express and Star this week the Council are more concerned with removing A boards for businesses who employ people and pay rates and who are trying to get people into their shops than removing Chuggers. Spouting the usual "Health and Safety" rubbish while ignoring the hundreds of damaged paving stones and their own black bollards designed to blend in (as opposed to A Boards that are designed to actually be seen). Always amuses me that those on the High Street can keep their A Boards but those trying to get people to explore away from the main drag are penalised. I also see the Council are looking into a BID for Stafford - that might be interesting judging by my chats with a few of the businesses in the town.

 

Wow. I literally had no idea that this is the way that they operate, colour me informed.

I don't know about you, but i generally wake up of a Wednesday morning and think * i haven't really thought that much about what Unicef do *, so today i'm going to set up a direct debit to commit a certain amount of my net worth to them on an ongoing basis.

Let's play bullsh*t

I'm no expert, but i'd reckon that if something still exists, in the face of the kind of opposition one encounters here...

It must do more than wipe its face?

But you are all probably right and everything.

 

The breaking article was ten years ago but there’s a more recent one here (content warning: hate-rag)

Even if they’re not on commission directly, the firm behind them costs charities a fortune. I wouldn’t be surprised if many don’t even see a profit from the money they spend on them due to cancellations of direct debits, etc. But you have to wait five years to know if that’s the case and it’s only in recent years that people have started getting wise to it.

Eventually they’ll probably stop using them all, as there will be far better ways to get people to sign up. That is if they are actually tracking that data properly and can tell when they’ve lost money on them. Alternatively perhaps the approach is the firms now have a guaranteed return which is why they’re so aggressive and there’s so bloody many of them up and down the high street at once. They have to keep going till they meet the target promised to the charity... hmm

I assume the term chuggers/charity muggers comes from them hassling people in the street, but it seems to very much be a case of them mugging the charity

 

Chuggers raise awareness, usually. For every few people annoyed another is chugged, and as long as they stay paying the charity eventually see some money.

There is a flip side though, I cancelled donations in the past twice based on the actions of their representatives. One refused to believe I already donated and was outright rude, the other said if I can afford x sorely I can afford y and started filling in the paperwork without asking me. Another physically grabbed my shoulder to stop me walking off, and received a massive yelling of expletives for his efforts. I don't think I donated to those, but I called them to voice my option of their methods.

The actual chuggers are generally nice, but carted around the country often staying in hotels with set targets for each town they get sent to.

 

What annoys me are these seemingly permanent road signs that have been dumped on the pavement for temporary M6 diversion routes, so temporary, the signs have had time to rust , and during the heatwave, some have even melted into the pavement, some are even missing signs and are now a discarded piece of mental junk obstructing the pavement. Who's even in charge of these ?!

 

Virtual mugging -> Vugging - calling it.

Just like everybody thinking that advertising is a waste of money Coz it DoEsN'T wOrK oN mE, and yet... If people are doing it, there is likely evidence that it works.

I'm not some sort of apologist for the practice, like i said it annoys me too (thought better of a hash-tag there), but it's not something that get's me massively agitated - you can just say 'no thanks' after all.

 

That new issue whinger always causes me to cross the street ............. morninnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggg, in that pleading begging tone.