Calis Beach and Fethiye Turkey Discussion Forum
General Topics => All things that have nothing to do with Turkey => Topic started by: Scunner on August 22, 2012, 18:35:07 PM
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Charities face new street fundraising rules
New rules will result in charities being fined upwards of £1,000 if their staff harass members of the public.
Following a year long trial, The Public Fundraising Regulatory Association (PFRA) will enforce the new chugger rules, which impose a number of restrictions on how street-side charity workers can operate. The restrictions will prevent charity workers from:
following a person for more than three steps
standing within three metres of a shop doorway, cashpoints, pedestrian crossing or station entrance
signing up anyone who is unable to give informed consent, due to illness, disability, drink or drug use
approaching anyone who is working, such as newspaper vendors
£1,000-plus chugger fines
Charities will be given a 1,000 penalty point limit, which is reset annually. Breaching any of the rules will result in up to 100 penalty points being levied on the charities. Once the 1,000 limit has been reached the charities will be charged on a £1 per point basis. Money raised through fines will be used to facilitate and improve compliance checks.
I for one am absolutely delighted to hear this - I do my bit for charity but we were shocked to see how much this sort of activity had changed in the 5 years we were out of the UK. I am tired of people shaking tins in my ear as I walk up the High Street, or confronting me as I leave Tesco in an attempt to embarrass me into donating.
I guess my views aren't the views of the majority, let's see...
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I agree Keith. I decide which charity I give to, not the chuggers who try to intimidate me on the High Street!
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Is chugger a common word then Russ? I've never heard it and reading it in the article it was a new word to me :)
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Chuggers is a slang term for what people call Charity Muggers. They're most prevalant in big towns and cities and are usually found hanging around large shopping centres or stations working in groups. They try to get you to sign-up to donate monthly to a charity by standing order. The new law is mainly directed at these people, not the "tin rattlers". Most councils have bye-laws in place now that forbid charity collectors from rattling tins or buckets and from approaching people. They must just stand there silently.
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We have charity folk who set up just inside the very big supermarkets and won't let you pass without confronting you - even if you put on your most obvious "I do not want to talk to you" face and body language. I am most unlikely to give them anything and although they think talking to me must improve the chance of me doing so, the exact opposite is true.
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...not before time as far as I'm concerned. Some of the collectors are a right pain in the butt.
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Totally agree..... some on them can be quite intimidating and in the past I have made that known to the so called 'tin rattlers' >:(
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Hate the 'chuggers' and would never, ever stop for them. I'll give to charity they way that I choose thank you very much.
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I can be quite rude to "Chuggers". The only charity I subscribe to on the street is RNLI. I do, however, cough up a few quid for people doing sponsored charity walks/runs/swims etc
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My pet hate is the kids in supermarkets doing your packing for a donation for their morris dancing club or whatever.
Firstly they cant pack they just throw all your stuff in random bags and you get home to find lettuce etc at the bottom of a bag full of tins.
Secondly I rarely take cash with me to the supermarket, I have pound coins in the car for the trolley then pay by card.
I always walk past the tin shakers, and make the effort to take stuff straight to a charity shop rather than leave it for the street collectors who give a fraction of its worth to charities.
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What I think is even worse are those that call at your house looking for donations.
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I am not often harassed by "tin rattlers", indeed I cannot remember it happening at all. There, are of course, people who stand at the exit of supermarkets (in the dry) or in the street who rattle their tins as you walk past and sometimes I give and sometimes I don't. But none have actually come up to me and rattled a tin in my face. I believe these people are unpaid volunteers. [Having, some years ago, collected for charities I like I remember lots of people walking past who, in a miracle of selective sight, seem optically incapable of noticing you. (On one occasion two such myopic passers-by, goint in opposite directions, bashed into each other. I promise you I did not laugh out loud - did smile though].
"Chuggers" I find quite different. They come up and address you in the street (I am not sure supermarkets permit them to trade inside), give you a spiel similar to that you get on nuisance phone calls from people who want to tell you your computer has a virus, and try to get you to instantly provide them with a credit card number so they can take monthly payments - which I never do. I believe most of these people are paid for their work and it would not surprise me to learn that they are on some of commission basis for numbers of punters signed up which would account for their quite aggressive approach.
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Most Chuggers are paid entirely on commission. That's what makes them so hungry and such a nuisance.