Chuggers Anyone!

[Quillan]

Mrs 'Q' is working on an enquiry at the moment and asked me what a 'chugger' was. I didn't have a clue till she told me so I wondered, out of interest, if anyone else has heard of this word and knows what it means. If you live in the UK there is a very good chance you will have come across one.

[Loiseau]

Red spider mites ?

[Quillan]

[quote user="Loiseau"]Red spider mites ?[/quote]

Nope, think about giving (clue).

[Loiseau]

They scratch and annoy,then draw blood. seems almost like charity has sellers!

[Mac]

They are those awful ''charity '' collectors that stop you -normally outside shopping centres-and try and get you to sign up for direct debits to various charities. Usually they get paid by results and so do the companies they work for so the charities don't get all the money. As they get paid by results they are VERY insistent!!! Hence ''Charity Mugger'' or ''Chugger''

[Loiseau]

A description of red spider mites then?

[Quillan]

[quote user="Mac"]They are those awful ''charity '' collectors that stop you -normally outside shopping centres-and try and get you to sign up for direct debits to various charities. Usually they get paid by results and so do the companies they work for so the charities don't get all the money. As they get paid by results they are VERY insistent!!! Hence ''Charity Mugger'' or ''Chugger''[/quote]

Well done Mac, you got it quicker than me.

Apparently the major national UK charities employ them full time on a basic salary with incentives such as commision or a bonus for targets met. They are also obliged by law to inform you of this before they try and get you to sign up to anything, something I didn't know. Apparently this and the fact that many charity event, head office, organisers these days are on 6 figure salaries means that in general the average running cost of a national charity is 80% of the money given or to put to another way only 20p in every pound goes to help people (and in some cases that generous).

[Russethouse]

My pet hate! Sometimes when I go to my local Waitrose there are one or two just inside the door where I pick up my self scanning handset, then when I come out there is someone else with a charity collecting bucket of a different kind at the exit.

The chuggers are usually for the Thames valley helicopter rescue or for a local animal charity (BBONT?), both good causes, but I'm simply not prepared to set up a DD for them - I'll happily give a donation there and then, but they won't accept it........

[confused of chalus]

It's a contraction of 'Charity muggers' and yes, I have encountered them extensively in Kingston High Street on visits to the UK. But all I had to do was say I didn't have a UK address and they move on. They are mostly well meaning, polite youngsters and I feel sorry for them trying to earn a living this way.

[idun]

One evening about a week before christmas the door bell sounded. It was very cold and wet and a bedraggled young man stood there. He wasn't selling charity donatations, but selling household goods for charity. We get both around here.

I asked how much these things were and they were dear, EG about £10 for a micro fibre glove duster. I said that these things were far too expensive and how many had he sold. But he had sold none all day long. And I believed him, he looked dejected, cold and wet.

I brought him in, put him in front of the fire. I gave him a hot drink and christmas cake and bought one. Because I like the young and I like the young 'trying' and for all I am not at all well off, I'm not poor either and this young man needed to see decency.

 

My son has gone for these jobs. He ended up getting taken on and left after the first day saying it was a con and he just could not do it. Apparently taking these 'agent's to poor areas with OAP's in their bungalows paid the best. And for all my son needed a job, he did not want to do what he considered 'rob' vunerable people to make next to no money.

 

This is a scandal from start to finish. I have bought from door to door charity sellers in France, when they have been selling household goods. I will give to directly to charities as one off payments, but apart from the RNLI which we have paid a direct debit since 1977, I will never sign up to anything else.

 

I feel so sorry for anyone who gets sucked into doing this work. I would like it banned and I would like all the charities shamed for using this method.

 

Yes, these people do push. These are desparate people, they need to sell to make anything, lovely calling them charity muggers.......delightful in fact. Pity we don't have more 'proper' jobs for people!

[Edward Trunk]

A variant of this is requests to sponsor people to skydive or sail round the UK etc "for charity". Most of the money you give them goes to the company organizing the event, not to the charity.  A new "health lottery" has started up in the UK; only 20p in every pound goes to the NHS. Then of course, there's an organisation called "HMRC" which takes money off you for "good purposes" - schools, hospitals........

[Judith]

Another variant is to ask if you would be prepared to answer some questions on "..... whatever it be".  I was always quite happy to do questionnaires, etc, but once I discovered that this was a way in for the chugger to get you to sign up with a dd etc etc, I used to say I haven;t the time etc.  As you say, now, once they discover you don't  have a UK address they back off.

I am sure that all of us are happy to put something into a tin (as a Rotarian I have spent enough of my time shaking one!) but I entirely dislke the dishonesty chuggers have to apply to get you to stop.

[Rabbie]

[quote user="Edward Trunk"]A variant of this is requests to sponsor people to skydive or sail round the UK etc "for charity". Most of the money you give them goes to the company organizing the event, not to the charity.  A new "health lottery" has started up in the UK; only 20p in every pound goes to the NHS. Then of course, there's an organisation called "HMRC" which takes money off you for "good purposes" - schools, hospitals........[/quote]Because of my contributions to HMRC I have a clear conscience when ignoring other requests.[:D] 

[dave21478]

When I am stopped by them in UK, I put on an outrageous foreign accent and say something along the lines of "Me no speaka de Inglaisey" - Works every time.

Every now and then I get Gyppos coming to the door in France selling tat or scavenging for scrap metal. In those cases I put on an outrageous toff accent and say "terribly sorry old chap, I am just house sitting for a friend." - Works every time. Works well for cold callers on the phone too.

[cooperlola]

[quote user="Edward Trunk"]Then of course, there's an organisation called "HMRC" which takes money off you for "good purposes" - schools, hospitals........[/quote]Quite.  I have a fundamental distrust of the whole concept of charities.  If taxation worked properly then we'd all be supporting those less fortunate than ourselves without any need for this stuff, nor the sharks who feed off it. Grr. Don't get me started.[:-))]

[Quillan]

The thing is that many charities are now taking over things that were previously done by regional and local government. Take for example schools for the deaf and blind, now mainly subcontracted (yes that is the right word) out to RNID and RNIB, relieves them of any liability. There is a lot of others now doing different things that were previously done by regional and local government. Unfortunately they can't take them all over and many minority groups are no longer supported. My feeling is that this is where money should be spent, not in India and other countries that currently receive aid from the UK