Beware - charity phone spam from Supporter Insight

BikerEd

It's tough out there right now for charities. Take Guide Dogs for the Blind. Their annual income (and expenditure) is around £70m. But the poor things are down to their last £126m of long term investments. Their 1000 employees must be really worried.
http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/ShowCharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=209617&SubsidiaryNumber=0

fantasia322

OMG I clicked the link and found that this company lists Cancer Research UK amongst its clients.
I wonder if one of their tele fundraisers were responsible for this little gem
http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/4632976.Bournemouth_cancer_mum_s_shock_at_cold_call/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1214114/Mother-cancer-told-having-disease-brilliant--Cancer-Research-cold-caller-asking-donation.html
I also read in 3rd sector magazine that cancer research UK have frozen their telefundraising until this has been investigated.
Imagine telling a terminal cancer patient that 'its brilliant'

BikerEd

fantasia322 wrote: »

OMG I clicked the link and found that this company lists Cancer Research UK amongst its clients.

It is very big business. Cancer Research UK raised £341m last year in voluntary donations - the biggest part of its £476m income. It spent £344m of that income on charitable activities i.e. cancer research, but it also spent a staggering £74m on generating voluntary income - which equates to 22%. Think about that, £74,270,000 was spent paying commission to the likes of Supporter Insight. To me that's an unbelievable, almost obscene amount of money. Contrast that with my local hospice which spent just £80,000 raising £1.8m of voluntary income - a much more reasonable 4%.

Big charities who behave more and more like big corporations (or even worse, like greedy banks) really don't deserve our support any more. That story from the previous poster does nothing to sway me from that opinion.

fantasia322

Wonder what Cancer Research UK does with the money it gets from the Welcome Trust also

SP42

Their sister company, Pell & Bales got caught calling people who were on tps and also people who had asked not to be contacted again. Although they now say they wont do that anymore, they should know the law..
go to third sector co uk and search pell and bales.

Also one of their callers turned out to be less than what one might expect
A PERVERT jailed for grooming a boy of 13 on the internet landed a job raising cash for kids' charities.
Sick Peter Tuffley, 31, lied about his past to take up the £25,000-a-year post working with NSPCC and Barnardo's.

His past was exposed only after he had worked at the fundraising firm for a year. A source said: "It was a complete shock."

Tuffley, a former assistant to Labour MP Hazel Blears, lured the lad to his flat in Liverpool after they met through a chatroom.

He was cleared of sexual activity with the boy, but convicted in December, 2006, of sexual grooming and child abduction. Tuffley, of Ridgewood, East Sussex, was jailed for 15 months.

After his release, he got a job with fundraising firm Pell & Bales. One worker at the office in Brighton said: "Only when someone Googled his name did we find out the truth about him." A spokesman for Pell & Bales said Tuffley - who had no contact with children - had omitted details of his convictions on his job application form.

He added: "When this was discovered he was suspended. He subsequently resigned."

The NSPCC said it had asked the firm to carry out an "urgent review" of its recruitment vetting procedures.

BWestie

Supporter Insight are at it again. We've been receiving calls from an unknown source for the past week, even though we are part of TPS. Only number registered when doing 1471 was the digits 1113, nothing else. Eventually someone spoke last night, overseas probably, evidenced by the time delays between speaking, and the echo. Would not leave a number but confirmed the company was Supporter Insight carrying out a survey on behalf of charities.
Have subsequently emailed Supporter Insight asking them to remove our number from their database.
I cannot, as yet, find anyone else locally who's had a call

Isagorn

Im under cyber attack from Supporter Insight,hence the reason its taken three hours to get to write in the forum.Ive been under attack from them for a week.I had two silent calls and three contact calls. Two of the contacts could be classed as silent as i waited for them to speak to which they hung up on me.The one last night when I asked said which company Supporter Insight and did actually sound like there were Indian.(And I actually was in the film Little Voice, Mr Boo,s nightclub scenes) But ive had all week terrible trouble logging on due to my line being busy and getting booted within minutes. Ive had clicks and rings and followed if still offline hours later by the"telephone call"
Im TPS and when asked for the address of Supporter Insight the caller hung up. plus every 1471 ive done has got nonumber by caller.Note ive been booted during this and had minutes trying to get back due to busy line. Im the only one on the line!!!!!!

lindos90

Had a call from supporter insight today, I am also TPS registered, which sadly does not apply to overseas calls (although I always thought it did, if the call is representing a UK business)

He said his name was 'Patrick Owen' which I doubt, and said his phone number was 0845 029 330, but didnt show on google, maybe missing a digit?

I know charities want to ake money, but to spend so much on telemarketing, is very bad taste. Donations should go to the cause itself, not invested in indian call centers.

jamesh2005

:mad:there calling on the number 44800051089 india call center im on the tps but its india so it dont apply over there calling 7 ish times a day from 8 am to 9 pm for over 3 weeks last night at 8.50 pm was the first time any one spoke to me gave them a right ear full as thay woke the kids up :mad:

BLT_2

soolin wrote: »

If you could find out what charity they represented I would also be inclined to give that charity a call. Personally I no longer deal with charities that use such tactics but I would phone and let them know so they can maybe review their fundraising options.

Tell them to give me a call, I have a very loud stereo system. When I get these type of calls, I ask them to hang on, ramp my stereo up full blast and then stick the phone by the speaker.

Within 30 seconds the phone line goes dead.