what's the deal with chuggers? have they been pushed off the high streets?

System

We get Jehovah's Witnesses. I can see them coming down my road wearing suits. Not many answer the door. Unsure if they are actually out or ignore them. One time, they were by my front door when I drove home. I said I'm a blood donor (a lie).

Not had a chugger yet. If I do, I will say 'if I want to donate to.a charity, I contact them. As you have come uninvited, you won't get anything. Plus I don't give my bank details at the door'

Azari

ScarletMarble wrote: »

We get Jehovah's Witnesses.

They come round our way quite regularly (about twice a year).

What I find interesting about them is that they always walk very slowly, and always appear to be in deep and earnest conversation as they move from house to house.

I'd love to eavesdrop on that conversation:

"So, that God character then."
"Yeah, awesome, isn't he?"
"Yeah."
"And what about that bible?"
"Mmmm, it's His word, I believe"
"You don't say?"

Pollycat

ScarletMarble wrote: »

We get Jehovah's Witnesses. I can see them coming down my road wearing suits. Not many answer the door. Unsure if they are actually out or ignore them. One time, they were by my front door when I drove home. I said I'm a blood donor (a lie).

Not had a chugger yet. If I do, I will say 'if I want to donate to.a charity, I contact them. As you have come uninvited, you won't get anything. Plus I don't give my bank details at the door'

We get JW a lot.
I've befriended one of the guys, he's really nice. We have a chat about all sorts of non-religious stuff then he shows me an article in Watchtower and we discuss.

He knows he not going to convert me but I guess it's a part of their religion to spread the word.

If any other JW comes along, I always say 'No, I only talk to <guy's name>.
I had 2 female JW visitors the other day and she wouldn't take 'no' for an answer and said 'well, can I just read you this from the bilbel' and I said 'no, I'll wait and talk to <guy's name>. Bye'.

Don't have many chuggers at the door but someone from our local hospice came the other day wanting to sign me up for their lottery.
I said I support them by donating all my unwanted items and also by buying stuff from them.

Marktheshark

Students have gone home.

skintpaul

robatwork wrote: »

How do you become a chugger?

Do you have to do especially badly at school and then really not have any idea what you want to do when you grow up?

Plenty of ads in local job sites.. alarming OTE earnings, makes me wonder how much actually reaches the charity..

forgotmyname

Azari wrote: »

They come round our way quite regularly (about twice a year).

What I find interesting about them is that they always walk very slowly, and always appear to be in deep and earnest conversation as they move from house to house.

I'd love to eavesdrop on that conversation:

"So, that God character then."
"Yeah, awesome, isn't he?"
"Yeah."
"And what about that bible?"
"Mmmm, it's His word, I believe"
"You don't say?"

I thought you were going to do the bit from Father Ted, where Dougal says he is confused, ted asks which bit and Dougal says all of it (i think)?

Then mocks that he was supposed to have risen from the dead etc..

We must be on the route between their homes, JW seem to be calling almost weekly. Had them calling today.

Started asnwering the door to them now in practive for the Capita scumbags who will try and force me to buy a Tv licence when we no longer require one.

As soon as i mention not buying it the missus starts watching TV.

zagfles

skintpaul wrote: »

Plenty of ads in local job sites.. alarming OTE earnings, makes me wonder how much actually reaches the charity..

Have a look at their annual reports. Ignore the graphs and look at the numbers. The graphs can be misleading.

Look at the voluntary income and the cost of generating the voluntary income. Some split income into "restricted" and "unrestricted", often "restricted" is money they've been given for specific projects, sometimes by govt or other organisations, and generally has lower generation cost. Generally income generated by chuggers will be unrestricted.

So dividing "cost of generating unrestricted voluntary income" by "unrestricted voluntary income" gives some idea of how much of a typical donation gets taken in costs. It's often around 30-40% :eek:
Then bear in mind some voluntary income is cheap to raise, eg legacies, people donating online.

The graphs often give the cost of generating voluntary income as a percentage of total income (including eg retail income) which is obviously misleading.

This isn't an argument not to donate - just to donate in an efficient way. Never sign up with a chugger, if you want to donate go direct to the charity's website where you'll have the option of regular or one-off donations which will likely cost the charity 5% or less. Not 40% or more.

MothballsWallet

I'll be glad when all charities realise how much of the public's goodwill they're losing when they employ chuggers and agencies that employ chuggers.

But that'll be the day when charity CEOs agree to take a pay cut to a fare more reasonable salary...

vikingaero

MothballsWallet wrote: »

I'll be glad when all charities realise how much of the public's goodwill they're losing when they employ chuggers and agencies that employ chuggers.

But that'll be the day when charity CEOs agree to take a pay cut to a fare more reasonable salary...

My personal view is that if a charity wishes to employ a commercial organisation and utilise the less than ethical practices of big business then they should be treated by the public with the same disdain we often have for big businesses.

On another note chugging jobs are like double glazing promotion jobs - they are "non-jobs" that young people are forced into and this often affects benefits and gets them further into debt.

AnnieO1234

Callers by appointment only stickers seems to have cleared off the almost daily collectors we were getting. I note however that a neighbouring police force is giving out stickers referring to the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading regulations that makes it clear if they continue to knock they could be arrested. Can't remember the exact wording.

They are on commission generally through a third party agency , but they should have lodged a license for your specific area to collect in it. A few years ago we found there were a lot of students coming into our area hitting the same streets 3 or 4 times a day! It turned out they couldn't go to more outer reaches of the county due to bus services so they were just concentrating on where they could get to.

I know the charities need to raise money but harassing people is not the way to go about it - years ago I hit one who physically grabbed hold of my shoulder and sleeve as I walked passed him. It's the first way to get me to cancel any existing payments I have with a chairty and never deal with them again.