Charity muggers are irritating

The chuggers have been getting worse, especially since they've started to turn up on doorsteps. I had an encounter with an Oxfam guy who was particularly rude when I expressed my lack of interest in continuing the conversation. Your one doesn't sound rude, just clueless, but if you have anyone being an ass I'd suggest that you complain to both the organisation in question and to their watchdog, the PFRA. Maybe if enough people voice their dislike of this kind of approach they'll eventually get the message.

I've got nothing against donating to charitiesblocking the automatic door.On my exit again

If you live in Manchester you will know St Annes Square is teeming with charity workers. Usually, a polite but firm "No thank you" will work but you do get the more aggressive ones who pretty much run after you. Recently, one did some kind of arm waving dance in front of me, making it difficult to pass. Give these people your personal details at your peril (believe me I've done this). Once the charity have your contact details they will be forever phoning you about 8:45pm, telling you that if you could "Increase your contributions by another £20 a month, we can help even more........". Charity is a great thing and is unfortunately needed in this world. But I know as well as most people that the directors of these organisations are on hefty salaries which is a contradiction in my view. I'll continue to put a quid in a collection box from time to time.

If you live in Manchester you will know St Annes Square is teeming with charity workers. Usually, a polite but firm "No thank you" will work but you do get the more aggressive ones who pretty much run after you. Recently, one did some kind of arm waving dance in front of me, making it difficult to pass. Give these people your personal details at your peril (believe me I've done this). Once the charity have your contact details they will be forever phoning you about 8:45pm, telling you that if you could "Increase your contributions by another £20 a month, we can help even more........". Charity is a great thing and is unfortunately needed in this world. But I know as well as most people that the directors of these organisations are on hefty salaries which is a contradiction in my view. I'll continue to put a quid in a collection box from time to time.

A person collecting money for "the blind" approached my friend who is quite clearly blind ( big guide dog). As a joke my friend suggested that he cut out the middle man and just give her the money now. He was extremely huffy and offended. Apparently they don't have a sense of humour!

I have a friend who worked as a chugger (team leader no less) and was bragging about earning the grand sum of 17k... my husband audited the same charity, and discovered that the average rate which actually ends up in charity coffers after chugger wages, expenses, bank charges, admin etc is 2p in the £, where a straight donation was adding 40p in the £ (still pathetic don't you think??)

I've got nothing against donating to charities, but my pet peeve is the guilt trip some of the larger charities try and lay on you n the form of TV commercials. I make it a point never to give to any charity which advertises on TV, purely because the money they spend on the commercials should be used for whatever cause they're meant to be supporting.

I am employed by a charity we are unique in that our wages are paid for by our FOunder, this means that we do give everything collected to our children, knowing that we can do this and seeing how much we struggle with collections, it annoys me that many charities as you so rightly have pointed out skim a lot of the collected money off to cover wages etc.

Maybe its a question you should be asking before you donate, maybe you should only donate to those of us who pay our own way and use all your money in the way you intended your donation to be spent!

Remember 'Chuggers' (Charity muggers) are not usually employed by the charity, but by a fund raising company working on behalf of the charity. There was a programme on Radio Four that suggested that the charity only gets a small proportion, something like 25-30% of the amount donated, as the company takes it's cut.

I was told once admittedly some time ago, that it was illegal for charities to come up to you,you had to approach them.Tin rattling was also frowned upon.We often get them outside the local supermarket as they wait for your trolley euro/pound which I thought was okay until one day they pounced before I could start shopping actually blocking the automatic door.On my exit again this happened and I said if they could actually be patient,they would get it when I returned the trolley.I as promised returned it,no sooner had I gone to pull out the coin,they were literally on my back.Let me just say noone got the coin that day as the harder I pulled,the harder the bucket was pushed into my back,the harder the trolley refused to part with it!I gave up after a few good minutes struggle,the charity guy did not however,eventually I told him if you want it be my guest,The charity must have been in real dire straits because he was still fighting the trolley as I left the carpark,despite the numerous people walking in and out of the supermarket!

And Big Issue sellers that are clearly not homeless. There's a full time pest perched outside Marks and Spencers. He's been there for years and is just a salesman. He always approaches and asks. I don't want to be asked or talk to him or them, I just want to get into the shop. I find myself avoiding that shop these days just for peace. I mean ok genuine homeless for a short period but flogging the thing for years as just a job is not on. I don't want their magazine. I'm not forced to buy a specific magazine in WHS so why should they be special.

Well said everyone. I have a policy of never supporting any charity which employs charity collectors, for the simple reasons that (a) in addition to their usually being patronising in the extreme, (b) they are paid. I realise that charities need a certain amount of money to run themselves, but whatever happened to volunteering, isn't that the idea of charity work?

To make matters worse, the people employed are often less than clued up (and occasionally totally ignorant) of the matters the charity relates to. I am an Amnesty International member and some years ago at a monthly meeting it emerged there had been a number of public complaints with charity street collectors being very vague about our aims and unable to say any more than that the money was for "poor little children in Africa". It was only Amnesty's swift action on ceasing to use these people that stopped me cancelling my membership.

On another occasion I was beset by a charity mugger from MIND (mental health). This was at the dawn of the era of this sort of thing. He gave me a long spiel about people with mental health issues, and at the end of it I calmly told him that, as someone who has had depression / self harm issues herself, 80% of what he had just said was way off the mark, stereotypical and borderline insulting to the people in question. His face was a picture and to be honest I had to feel sorry for the guy, but it's quite sad really to think that people so poorly trained and clearly doing it only for the money are getting the charities such a bad name - and ultimately the people who come off worse are the people the charities want to help.