Clothing Collection Scam

trisontana

dangeroussports wrote: »

What did you give them?
I need to get shot of a double bed (not a good buy from Debenhams last year, I got the offer from the Grabbit board).

Cant be bothered to sell it on ebay, might put it in hte paper as a freebie.

Some charities will take furniture and will collect them from your home. Try phoning your local council they should have a list of such charities. Here in Nottinghamshire one such organisation is called "The Furniture Project" they not only take furniture, but working electrical items such as fridges and TVs. They use the goods to help former homeless people furnish their new homes with the basics.

sarahg1969

I contacted two local organisations who collect furniture for homeless people who are being housed.

Firstly, I had a suite. Only about 5 years old and in lovely condition. But people don't really like green suites, apparently.

Then, I had two single beds, and two double solid pine wardrobes and chests of drawers. But there's no call for single beds - they'd rather have double, and thye prefer more modern stuff. Pine's not so fashionable anymore.

Honestly, I couldn't give them away. Sadly, I wasn't a member of freecycle at the time, and it all went to the tip.

RadoJo

I live in Cambridgeshire and there is an organisation called Emmaus who provide furniture to peole being housed, as well as selling it to punters for the cash which also goes towards their housing projects. I know that there are loads round the country and you can find out more here: http://www.emmaus.org.uk/

They collect large items, or if you can transport them you can just turn up and they will take pretty much everything off your hands - last time we went I bought a bundle of kindling, so I suspect any long standing non-sellers are recycled that way!

lifes_a_gas

I had worked in this industry for a number of years (clothes collections) and if you think there is no money in it for charities / or other companies think again ! on average clothes collected from bring sites ( i.e. local supermarkets etc) are worth between £550 to £600 per ton. Clothing collected from door to door is worth between £700 to £800+ per ton and demand is always high. Your right about the looking at who is collecting but also you should look carefully even with a charity number. Charities if they wish to trade will normally set up a Trading arm, this will enable it to buy an sell items to raise cash even so it is a commercial company so money is kept for expansion, salaries, bonuses etc, other will SELL there names to companies to use. This way the company will pay a small royalty to the charities and bags the difference. This is not illegal and the charity commision sets guide lines on the percentage of income a charity can make from selling its name. But of course what is misleading is that when you give clothing to a cause you think its going straight to what ever charity you are giving to. More often than not it will be a commercial company who do very nicely out of this transaction. It also worth looking very closley at clothing banks before you leave a donation as in small print somewhere you will see the operator (in other words the commercial company). The clothing collections industry generates millions of pounds a year and its not even fair to say its recyling old clothes, as most clothing is sold to eastern european countries and there is whole network distribution for taking in clothes, of course the point is once they are finished with them they go into land fill in there respective countries, of course they would have made it there alot sooner if they hadnt been exported for further use.
Non of this is illegal it just worth knowing where your hard earned cash is really going, it may just seem like some old clothes to you but its big profits for a number of companies

Allan3

lifes_a_gas wrote: »

I had worked in this industry for a number of years (clothes collections) and if you think there is no money in it for charities / or other companies think again ! on average clothes collected from bring sites ( i.e. local supermarkets etc) are worth between £550 to £600 per ton. Clothing collected from door to door is worth between £700 to £800+ per ton and demand is always high. Your right about the looking at who is collecting but also you should look carefully even with a charity number. Charities if they wish to trade will normally set up a Trading arm, this will enable it to buy an sell items to raise cash even so it is a commercial company so money is kept for expansion, salaries, bonuses etc, other will SELL there names to companies to use. This way the company will pay a small royalty to the charities and bags the difference. This is not illegal and the charity commision sets guide lines on the percentage of income a charity can make from selling its name. But of course what is misleading is that when you give clothing to a cause you think its going straight to what ever charity you are giving to. More often than not it will be a commercial company who do very nicely out of this transaction. It also worth looking very closley at clothing banks before you leave a donation as in small print somewhere you will see the operator (in other words the commercial company). The clothing collections industry generates millions of pounds a year and its not even fair to say its recyling old clothes, as most clothing is sold to eastern european countries and there is whole network distribution for taking in clothes, of course the point is once they are finished with them they go into land fill in there respective countries, of course they would have made it there alot sooner if they hadnt been exported for further use.
Non of this is illegal it just worth knowing where your hard earned cash is really going, it may just seem like some old clothes to you but its big profits for a number of companies

It is probably fair to say the charity is not getting best value from these organisations. According to their drop bags "Clothes Aid (Services) Ltd. will donate are giving at least £80 per tonne of clothes collected to the NSPCC registered chartity" which means they are giving 10-15% of the value to the charity. They state that "Clothes Aid (services) Ltd have guaranteed to donate a minimum of £800,000 plus VAT in a 12 month period". This means they are earning £5 - £8 million out of collecting clothes. Don't get me wrong, giving to charity is great, but in reality this is a multi million dollar private organisation collecting from people many of which think they are donating to a charity.

Give to the charity directly if you want the charity to get most of the money.

allybee101

The bags that the fradulent ones leave behind make excellent bin liners!
Leaflets with pleas to "help canser sufferers in third worlds countries" get put in the recycling.
I tend to take anything directly to the charity shop.

Alas some of these unscrupulous organisations also use the bags left on doorsteps to identify empty houses and help themselves to more than just your donations.

gbrogs21

Suzi.Q wrote: »

We get loads of these leaflets, they're all hand delivered unfortunately.

I put a notice on my door that said ' Please, no collection bags, Thanks' and they stopped delivering them.

You can also put up a notice for 'No Cold Callers'

I wonder if ' No Junk Mail' will be something the Post Man has to adhere too? I'll try it.

snugglepet20

I must admit they seem to have cracked down on the non-charity ones round here but I have noticed an increase in the collecting on behalf of x ones. In fact the only charity that seems to collect for itself is BHF so they can have my stuff.

wary

One occasion stands out in my mind. Not sure who the bags were for or even whether the person collecting them was actually anything to do with the company/charity (as opposed to stealing them). However, they clearly opened the bags whilst in our street as they disposed of them in our green bin, intended for garden waste only. Luckily I spotted it otherwise the binmen would have refused to take it.

trukdiver

Allan3 wrote: »

It is probably fair to say the charity is not getting best value from these organisations. According to their drop bags "Clothes Aid (Services) Ltd. will donate are giving at least £80 per tonne of clothes collected to the NSPCC registered chartity" which means they are giving 10-15% of the value to the charity. They state that "Clothes Aid (services) Ltd have guaranteed to donate a minimum of £800,000 plus VAT in a 12 month period". This means they are earning £5 - £8 million out of collecting clothes. Don't get me wrong, giving to charity is great, but in reality this is a multi million dollar private organisation collecting from people many of which think they are donating to a charity.

Give to the charity directly if you want the charity to get most of the money.

You are definitely better donating direct to a charity shop. They will sell what they can in the shop and recycle the rest. Oxfam operates it's own recycling plant:

https://www.oxfam.org.uk/donate/shops/wastesaver.html?cid=rdt_wastesaver

Even if the charity doesn't do it's own recycling, they should get market value frm the dealers.