It's getting tough out there. Feeling the pinch?

Paspatur

freyasmum said:

We had one guy phone and we let our 2.5yo answer. To be fair to him, he spoke to him about lions and zebras for ages before he said that he was really sorry, but he had to go now. Then he had a "bye... bye... byyyyeeeee" competition with him. I actually think we hung up first 🤣

Brilliant, love it. If I don't have a child handy I find asking them to wait a minute then playing Bat Out Of Hell very loud works

London_1

My favourite charity is the Sally Army, and at Christmas my family and friends know their Christmas cards cash is going to help them feed someone genuinly in need. My granddaughter usually donates the umpteen boxes of biscuits she gets from the kind Mums at the primary school where she teaches at Chrismas.

We also have a local charity called Gillingham Street angels who help the homeless and hard up in the area with food and there is a food wagon for free drinks and food every night in Gillingham High Street that hand out stuff

Its supposedly becoming harder and harder for CS to get many donations and the two Sense shops local to me  seem to have more ex-company donations, and as such charge almost the going rate for things.

We do have a children's hospice (Demelza) that I donate to locally, and our coffee morning usually have a small collection for them as well.

My eldest DDs husband actually works for a charity for the blind  and disabled, but his job is more legally servicing properties that have been left to the charity in peoples wills.
He visits several homes in the SW and organises repairs and extensions to various homes, but their are no CS invovled.

I did buy a young lad a coffee and a sausage sarnie a little while ago as he looked so fed up and young to be on the streets, I just hoped that should, God forbid ,one of my grandsons were in that position, someone would do the same for him.

The lad looked at the food and drink I gave him and then at me and said very politely 'Thank you so much' and bless him he had tears in his eyes. But he never asked for cash, and was just glad to have a cuppa and a sandwich I think
its so sad to see the homeless and dispossessed sleeping rough and especially when the weather turns chilly  I just can't look the other way ,and will happily buy food or a cuppa for anyone.

JackieO xx

sammyjammy

Couple of bad experiences with charity giving, one with Donkey Sanctuary who spent all the money from my one off donation pestering me for more money and the second where I let a "chugger "from Shelter grab me in the street, it took ages for me to give them all my info to put into their fancy tablet, after ten or 15 minutes and my patience wearing thin he asked me how much  I wanted to donate each month.  I told him £2 a month and his response was sorry its a minimum of £7 (or similar), I was genuinely shocked and said sorry, I give to other charities and cannot afford that followed by walking away, very disappointing.  It doesn't stop me donating I just choose very carefully where my money goes.  Even foodbank donations get saved up (I tend to give toiletries, washing up liquid etc. rather than food) and taken personally to the Trussel Trust as I have seen way too many people removing items from the supermarket foodbank boxes.

OrkneyStar

It's interesting to see all the negative experiences with charities and giving, and it reinforces my idea that if I can give then I do it as locally as possible as that does minimise a lot of these issues. With times getting harder and harder I expect charities will see less income, and there may be more people led to doing things which are akin to theft (not justifying it, but some folk will feel desperate I think). Take care all.

Rosa_Damascena

CKhalvashi said:

I had an HMRC scam call the other week, so after telling them my name is Wayne Kerr and that I need to pay £7000 due to fraud in my name, I equally like to play with them 'Oh, is that all you know about? Ok, I'll pay it as long as the investigation stops', etc etc etc. Not sure if someone here speaks Hindi, but if you ever have a problem, always offer to get your manager, Ben Chode (which when said in the right way is very very rude)

If nothing else, it stops them annoying/scamming someone else for half an hour

OMG, that is taking it too far. You could just put the phone down and block the number.

EssexHebridean

The calls re "your car accident" - I have found the best way of stopping those is to say in a very serious voice "Goodness - let me just get a pen and some paper....now, could you please give me the details of the person who has informed you that I've had an accident - as it isn't true obviously I'll be reporting this to the police..." sometimes they'll say that they can't due to "GDPR" in which case I point out that it is information relating to myself I'm expecting from them - therefore it's a legitimate request. As a general rule though the mere mention of "police" - a word that seems to be pretty much universally understood - elicits the required "click" as they terminate the call. 

My boss likes the calls that used to be quite common claiming to be from Openreach about a problem with the computer - he's been known to play them along for ages pretending to do every step they talk him through, but repeatedly telling them "No - I've done all that but nothing is happening..." eventually they get bored - his view is that while they're talking to him, they're not scamming someone else!   

maryb

Back in the days when we had au pairs we sometimes got cold calls from people with quite strong accents.  My sister was over at ours one day and we had popped out so she answered the phone.  On hearing what to her sounded like an Eastern European accent she called our au pair downstairs and thrust the phone into her hand.  I wish I had been a fly on the wall for the mutual failure of communication that ensued

newlywed

I like the computer scam calls. I ask them how they know from my IP address what my phone number is… they then tell me that I entered it onto my computer when I set it up and I tell them it’s a work computer and they would never enter my home number as they don’t have it. If they say my broadband provider gave it to them, then I ask who my provider is.

If they tell me I have a virus then I ask them what virus as I have an award winning anti virus program and need to report it back to them…. They usually mumble something about it being a Trojan not a virus but never give any name. 

For some reason they usually end up saying they need to speak to a manager to get more info and then hang up  

my nephew once pretended to do all the steps they asked and then when it wasn’t working for them to take control of the pc he asked if it’s because its a Mac?


for the survey questions I usually tell them I’m not willing to answer that question as I don’t want people contacting me to sell me things.

a friend once answered the accident one saying now they were worried they must have had a serious accident because they can’t remember it at all and starts asking for details claiming to be really concerned!

Pollycat

I don't answer my phone if I don't know who is calling.

London_1

I live about 8 miles from maidstone and 'chuggers' are always on the lookout in the High Street.One young mand stopped and I said "Do you honestly think I would give a total stranger in the street either my name, address ,phone number or bank details?"to which he replied 'It is for charity you know 'and I said very politely I thought for me
" Well I have my own arrangements for a charitable donation" and he flounced off in a huff  

JackieO xx