Charity Clothes Collection Scams

[ProfJohnL]

Following Christmas, we may decide we want to get rid of unwanted clothes or gifts, and the thieves know this.

In our area we get at least one plastic bag pushed through our door every week asking for old clothes. The bags are printed up and claim to be collecting for charity, in some cases well know charity names are often printed, implying it is the charity them selves that are doing the collection.

Sadly and has been proven by Trading standards around the country far too many of these collectors are actually traders, and more often than not none of the value of the goods collected reaches the named charities.

The bandits are spoiling it for the genuine charities,so how to reduce the theft of your gifts:

To guarantee your discards reach the charity, take them to the charities local shop.

Or to reduce the risk, check out the bag carefully, if it is a genuine charity, it must be registered with the charity commissioners and be issued with a charities number.

You can check out the number and name on the Charity Commission website

http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/showcharity/registerofcharities/registerhomepage.aspx?&=&
Also if the quality of the printing on the bag is poor, consider it to be suspect.

If you have time, and you spot the collection van, try to record its registration number, I have been surprised to see the same Iveco white van making collections for several different charities on different occasions - suspicious!

 

[Ancientcaravanner]

You are perfectly correct - we have had between four and five bags a week pushed through the letter box. They are all delivered around the same time each day and by the same person. I asked him who he worked for and he wouldn't answer and rushed away out of the steet without making any further deliveries. Been quite bag wise for the last week! MMMhhh!!!

 

[Clive-Cardiff]

Don't waste them, they make good bin bags.

 

[Icemaker]

we have the same problem here, we get on average 2 or 3 bags a week delivered i just place them in a pile on the end of the drive for them to collect empty.
my reason for this is i know of a local guy who came out of the military and started to work for a family member who delivered these bags and collected the full ones apparently on behalf of the charities commision who then sold the clothes on and shared the proceeds with the charities. the thing that concerned me was the guy i know only worked for them for 5 weeks before he was able to purchase a brand new £22.000 transit van to do the collections, when i made comment that trade must be good he simply stated that he got paid £500 per ton of clothes he collected, that is one hell of a lot of money that the charities are not receiving.
i would encourage nobody to give anything to these charity rip off merchants. take it to the shop yourself that way you know 100% is going to the charity.

 

[Surfer]

Personally I don't care who takes it as long as it is gone! Same applies to Freecycle.

 

[Philspadders]

Scam ? to be a scam there needs to be a deception. the wrappers on these bags usually state that they only donate a percentage to a chosen charity , they never have a charity number on them .
These companies have been doing this for years and its perfectly legal.
Next tiime you gget a bag , have a look at the paper wrapper it comes in.

We get loads and usually use them for bin liners

 

[carper2]

I have, at times had up to 7 bags in a week, I use most of them for putting shredded paper in. I do tend to keep hold of the Air Ambulance ones and when it is full I ring and they come and collect it.

Les

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Phill,

I posted the OP because I support a number of charities, and in particular a local Hospice where I know they have seen their income drop by a significant margin for a number of reasons. The general economic climate is one, but also they used to rely on donations of clothes and other household items which they would sell on in their local shops.

Household items used to be donated directly to the shops, but in the last two years they have noticed a 25% to 30% reduction overall and nearly 50% reduction in clothes.

There may be some very genuine collections out there, and I wish them well, unfortunately there are plenty of fraudulent or greedy collectors also, and they are the ones who are spoiling it for everyone.

As you rightly say some bags state that a proportion of the value of the donated items will passed to charities, but there are also many that purport to be from a charity and do carry a number.

I have checked several of the numbers that have been given, either the number is not on the commission's web site, of it is for an organisation with a different name. Of about ten I have checked only one appeared to be genuine.

It is a scam when a bag infers that some or all of the value of the donations is given to named charities, but in reality the collector is simply pocketing all or the majority the proceeds. We have no way of knowing if the donations actually reach their intended charities, how much and if it represents a major or minor proportion of the value of the donations collected.

There have been news reports that suggest these collection schemes are both wide spread and highly lucrative, and that a significant number are fraudulent where a figure of £2,000,000 has been mentioned and none of the value reaches the named charities.

 

[colin-yorkshire1]

hi prof
Next time you get some bags send us a couple,?? we have just cleaned out the wifes closet and all the old clothes when to the council tip not any of the recognised charities would collect them from us. We could have taken them to the shop but they wanted to sort them first and only take the ones they wanted.