Charity complacency

Loughton_Monkey

I'm just interested in any observations/comments on a curious experience I have had recently.

For quite a while, I have subscribed to the 'lottery' for a major household name Cancer Charity. Quite happy to have £13-ish regularly going from my current account.

In December, I received a phone call. It asked me to 'renew' my Direct Debit if I wanted to continue. Being reasonably financially 'savvy' I queried the necessity of this. The girl understood I had an existing DD but insisted that I needed a new one to continue the donation.

I conceeded, and gave my bank details again.

In January, I then had two amounts deducted from my account.

Now here's what I find strange. I made five phone calls to the charity. Each time I was promised either that someone would ring back, or that they would cancel and refund.... The very last call 'faithfully' promised a cheque that day. [It wasn't]

My 'rope' is quite long, but not that long and so I made a formal written complaint (copy to the Fundraising Standards Board). This eventually got an apology. But the FSB insisted that this was an 'administrative' error rather than any failure in marketing standards, and so were not really 'bothered'.

The charity did eventually send written apologies, and sent me a cheque. I had told them return of the money was less important. My intention was to alert them to what I saw as a complete 'con' by the sales agents (which I might have forgiven), but that the bigger sin was for their staff simply to fail to apologise/investigate/put things right.

Obviously I have cancelled both direct debits, and now cut them out of my will and replaced them by MacMillan Nurses.

What am I seeing here? Aggressive and unprofessional commission-only 'sales' agents? Coupled with 'We can't really be bothered' from the charity itself?

To whom should I send my £13 a month now?

Savvy_Sue

As it was a DD, you could also have told your bank and used the DD guarantee scheme. you might have had both DDs refunded pdq: it wasn't a charity, but I've had similar difficulties with changing our joint gym membership to a single one. After being completely ignored for 2 months, I contacted my bank, was told how to query a transaction, explained why the DD for Feb was wrong, and had the whole amount back in my account very fast. Of course, I now have to get a DD for a single membership reinstated, but fortunately the local Club have rung so I'll deal with them!

I can't tell you what the problem is with the charity, but I agree it's pretty poor. And if you're happy for MacMillan to have your bequest, why not send to them?

Actually, I think all my charity donations are by SO, and that's the way I'll keep it. They are under MY control then ...

Loughton_Monkey

Thanks. The money wasn't the issue for me really. Yes I cancelled one DD going forward And then the other one.

I was just staggered that they basically seemed not bothered by the thing at all.

Savvy_Sue

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Thanks. The money wasn't the issue for me really. Yes I cancelled one DD going forward And then the other one.

I was just staggered that they basically seemed not bothered by the thing at all.

Sadly I think it sometimes goes with the territory of large organisations: I work for a small charity and we're always ALL gutted and embarrassed and apologetic whenever anything goes wrong with our interactions with our supporters - like the time we sent a thankyou to our Standing Orders with insufficient postage!

But I feel the same with the central organisation of my gym: I was told "there are XX clubs, so it's a case of first come first served." I beg your pardon, but there's something wrong with your infrastructure if you can't correct a DD in 3 months! The local branch actually rang me yesterday and sent an email because I wasn't in, so THEY seem to care, but Head Office - bleugh!

ailuro2

I think it's treating people who are kind enough to donate like this that puts a lot of people off setting up regular direct debits - happened to me a while back downtown, tried to give the collector some money directly and told she wasn't allowed to take it, was only there to sign up people for monthly payments... you can guess they didn't get my money after all, I detest being made to feel like it's a business to make the maximum money out of people, like some big supermarket chain or catalogue company, they are charities,though some seem to have forgotten.

dawyldthing

whats even worse is that those that are on the streets signing people up to direct debits are paid, I think in the region of £30 per person they sign up, to sign up, so its a long while before the charity actually sees your money