Clothes collection... not needed?

mightymike

I recently cleared my house and wanted to donate to an honest charity and didn't want to pass them onto bogus ones who seem ready to pounce on some freebies.

All the clothes are good enough to sell or pass onto the needy.

I found a 2 genuine leaflets and 5 bogus ones. The 2 genuine were clothesaid and evergreen trust.

I rang evergreen on monday as the collection was supposed to be tues. No answer. Tues comes, I get up at 7am (so it doesn't get wet overnight) but nothing gets collected. I ring at 11am and they say there are collectors in the area. 4.30 and no-one picks up the clothes or the phone. Clothesaid don't even send a bag to me. It is now 5.30pm.

The clothes I am donating are really good and I have 2 huge boxes of them. I can't drive right now so can't deliver.

My question is: are these charities that well off or are they damn lazy? I've heard so many similar stories. No wonder these scam artists are finding it so easy!!!! Since these scam artists are making near over a million quid nationwide, surely the charities are missing out on this million through their own disorganisation??

mike

chas76

Maybe the charities have a shortage of volunteers that are able to collect in your area. I'm sure if you could maybe keep hold on to them a little longer they would collect as soon as they could. Maybe you could contact your local charity shop, some of my local ones have volunteers that can collect.

Lots of my neighbours give to these scam clothing companies, without realising they are not charities!!

JCD_Capulet

Having been a manager for an international charity before I can tell you that everything boils down to cash and volunteers. If the charity you mention have a volunteer driver off sick, or vans off the road then there is really nothing they can do about it in the immediate short term. It isn't a case of disorganisation (not for all charities that's for sure), as I said, it boils down to cash and volunteers.

If you'd still like to donate the clothes then, if you can, lay them aside untill a time when the charity are able to collect.

Savvy_Sue

If you have any 'chains' of charity shops locally, you may well find that they will do a collection. Some of our individual ones seem to offer this service too, but it does depend (as already said) on vehicles and volunteer drivers!

If you want to say where you are, someone might have specific suggestions along those lines.

mightymike

I actually kept them aside for specific reasons. It took me a while to find someone who could come and collect. Part of the problem is if you put in "Charity clothes collection" in google it's mainly loads of scam articles who don't offer solutions!!! Went through loads via yellow pages and none of them wanted to collect.

I understand that charities have limited funds etc, but when I'm literally doing the organising and phoning and set an agreed time. If then it fails then it's disorganised... it happens too often.

Listen, if the scam industry is worth millions, maybe they should get one of the scam artists and get them to work for them as part of their sentence!!

I actually want to help... I'm doing everything I can to help but on this occasion especially there's nothing more I can do...

Sally87

I've had the same thing, even worse really as the only reason I'd got a load of stuff together was because BHF had put one of those bags through the door! I waited a week, then rang and waited another week, then went into the shop in town (I don't drive, so couldn't take it myself) and still they didn't come when they said they would. I had to give up in the end and bin the lot as it rained while the bag was waiting outside :mad:

Have you thought of freecycle? It's not for charity, but you can chose who you would like to give things to out of the people who reply (who might be just as needy), and they will come and collect.

ahai1

You can also give all the bad stuff away which goes to the rag trade.

fengirl_2

I don't think Clothesaid is a registered charity - unless its official name is something else.

mightymike

Its gone now! Not sure if it was taken by evergreen trust or not. Oh well I can only hope it was them.

Spendless

What scam collections? I didn't know anything about them:eek: I often fill up a charity bag, for whoever has stuck a sack/leaflet thru the letter-box. What should I be looking out for?

blue_monkey_2

If you look at the bottom of the leaflet it will have a company registration number as it is a business and sells the clothes on for it's own profit, if it is for a proper charity it will have a charity number. It will say something at the bottom of the leaflet so be sure to look at it next time and you'll know the difference when the need arises next time.