Charities And Direct Debits

[Tin Foil Hat]

Just had the RSPCA dude round, DD's only in their fundraising.

I don't like DD and like to control my money by having as few as possible.

But I feel a little bad as I couldn't give him a cash donation and appreciate their work.

Why do they all seem to do this these days? Christian Aid was the last one I've seen that could do a cash donation.

TFH

[Guest BoomBoomCrash]

Don't donate, the RSPCA is one of the richest 'charities' in the UK. The people going round doing the collecting work for dodgy multi level marketing companies like 'Cobra Group'. The person signing you up gets about £10, and their top sales people do 10-15 a day. Tell them to ****** off, throw a bucket of piss on them, set the dog on them, but don't signup or give them a penny

Edited May 26, 2009 by BoomBoomCrash

[Gone baby gone]

If they don't want your money, they most likely don't need it. The door-to-door salesperson is probably paid on commission based on the number of DDs they set up.

[Moo]

Why do they all seem to do this these days?

Stop thinking of them as charities, and start thinking of them as businesses whose product is a temporary sense of well-being and a long term sense of guilt, then you'll have the answer. They want those DDs because they know cancelling them feels like a moral decision - one which will probably not be made by many of the customers because of the sheer feeling of guilt. If one is the sort of person who's going to gain satisfaction from giving in the first place*, then you're probably also the sort of person who's likely to see cancelling that £10pcm DD as taking money away from the orphans \ horses \ patients \ very well paid tradesmen who're restoring the bloody building, rather than the sort who'll look back and think "I've given £200 over the last couple of years". Guilt... all about guilt.

* This is not a criticism in the slightest. However, I doubt very much whether many charitable donations are made by people who ******ing well hate donating to charity.

[Tin Foil Hat]

lol @ BoomBoomCrash

I didn't realise these people doing the door-to-door were getting paid, either by the hour or by a bonus payment, or that they wear the RSPCA shirts today and another charity tomorrow. How naive of me!

Well, it's cleansed my guilty feeling. I will progress to a can of lager now when I get this last work email done!

TFH

[mercsl]

Is their not some sort of independant rating system for charities giving them so many stars of the like, some im sure is mostly for the benefit of directors....wonder what % of donations actually makes it to the good cause rather than administration?

[Cinnamon]

Also useful: http://fakecharities.org/

[Guest sillybear2]

Just had the RSPCA dude round, DD's only in their fundraising.

I don't like DD and like to control my money by having as few as possible.

But I feel a little bad as I couldn't give him a cash donation and appreciate their work.

He's on a commission, they're paid chairty workers (or chuggers) and are only interested in DD as most charties, no matter how worthy, now operate on a corporate cash flow basis. They don't want your measly few quid, your guilt has to be milked on a monthly basis.

[helenreed]

Bloody RSPCA. I have owned 5 cats during my life - all except one (run over) lived happy, long lives. I go to the local RSPCA to get a couple of kittens and am visited 3 times (an hour each of continuous questions and formfilling) by 3 uptight old biddies who eventually told me that I could not have them as I did not have a catflap! I now have some idea of how the child adoption process must be. I will never give them one penny. They have millions in Iceland is believe.

All these charities are now on the 'we are actually a business' bandwagon and without the lure of the charitable cause these people would be out of a job. I worked temporarily in a hospice eighteen months ago and the local NatWest were sending in their 'financial experts' to help maximise the profits. Luckily I left the week before they arrived to put their expertise into practice as the area they were going to sort out was the foyer where knitted teddies, notebooks and handmade soaps were sold. Maybe their plan was to place a salesman at a desk and sell some mortgages, insurance or loans to the sad relatives visiting their loved ones.

[SNACR]

Just had the RSPCA dude round, DD's only in their fundraising.

I don't like DD and like to control my money by having as few as possible.

But I feel a little bad as I couldn't give him a cash donation and appreciate their work.

Why do they all seem to do this these days? Christian Aid was the last one I've seen that could do a cash donation.

TFH

Get the account number and sort code of any company you've fallen out with or person/celebrity you don't like and let them make a donation on your behalf.

The 'I'm a good person' feelgood factor by charity donation is then magnified by getting someone you don't like to pay for it.

[SNACR]

Bloody RSPCA. I have owned 5 cats during my life - all except one (run over) lived happy, long lives. I go to the local RSPCA to get a couple of kittens and am visited 3 times (an hour each of continuous questions and formfilling) by 3 uptight old biddies who eventually told me that I could not have them as I did not have a catflap! I now have some idea of how the child adoption process must be. I will never give them one penny. They have millions in Iceland is believe.

All these charities are now on the 'we are actually a business' bandwagon and without the lure of the charitable cause these people would be out of a job. I worked temporarily in a hospice eighteen months ago and the local NatWest were sending in their 'financial experts' to help maximise the profits. Luckily I left the week before they arrived to put their expertise into practice as the area they were going to sort out was the foyer where knitted teddies, notebooks and handmade soaps were sold. Maybe their plan was to place a salesman at a desk and sell some mortgages, insurance or loans to the sad relatives visiting their loved ones.

Yep, we had the mad cat women round. I had to bite my tongue so hard to keep myself from saying 'it's just a cat' that it was bleeding by the time they left.

[impatient_mug]

That's one thing I have noticed improving recently - I can now make it down Portsmouth Com Road at a weekend without being harassed by about 50 chuggers all with a scripted sob story regarding whatever cause they're being paid to pretend to care about and a book full of direct debit sign-up forms.

[InternationalRockSuperstar]

Bloody RSPCA.

they really are a bunch of c***t!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/4889574.stm

Pc 'pursued' over killing of cat

The RSPCA has been accused of harassing a police officer after he killed an injured cat with a spade.

A prosecution estimated to have cost a total of £50,000 lasted two years before failing in the High Court.

The Police Federation says Pc Jonathon Bell had been "to hell and back" but the RSPCA says the case was in the public interest.

The charity pursues around 1,000 cases a year and that is likely to increase under the new Animal Welfare Bill. In April 2004, Pc Bell was called out to an estate in Stoke-on-Trent following reports of youths throwing stones at passing cars.

While there local residents called his attention to a cat which had been run over.

The 36-year-old officer sought advice from his control room and colleagues including a police handler.

He was told that by law there was no statutory duty for the police to call out a vet and that the RSPCA could not be contacted at that time of night.

He borrowed a spade and with three to four blows killed the cat.

His actions on that night unleashed what his supporters say has been a legal and personal nightmare for the officer who eventually was forced to take a month off because of stress.

The RSPCA says it took legal action following complaints from witnesses to the killing.

Difficult decision

The officer was acquitted at a two-day court hearing last September.

District Judge Graham Richards said Pc Bell had been forced to make a decision in difficult circumstances.

"You did what you honestly thought best," said Judge Richards, "You walk out of here without a stain on your character."

But the animal charity made an appeal to the High Court which recently threw out the case. The final judgement came two years after the cat was killed.

"He thought he was doing his duty as a policeman in a difficult situation and he had to make a judgement call and he's been made to pay for it," Mark Judson, chairman of the Staffordshire Police Federation told Radio 5 Live.

He said Pc Bell was too traumatised by the long-running case to comment but that he felt "harassed" by the RSPCA, especially after the charity took the case to the High Court.

"They wouldn't let it go even when the decision had gone against them."

Half squashed

An independent expert witness called to give evidence in the trial said the officer had been in a no-win situation.

"The cat had been squashed to within an inch thick at its lower half," said veterinary surgeon Colin Vogel.

"He did the kindest thing which was to put it out of its misery whereas if he'd just walked away leaving it injured he could have just as easily faced a charge of animal cruelty."

The estimated £50,000 total cost of the case, which includes £12,000 spent by the RSPCA on its own legal costs, will lead to accusations that it has wasted large amounts of voluntary donations and public money.

The RSPCA has defended its role in the trial of Pc Bell as well as the 1,000 prosecutions it brings every year.

"In the end, the High Court refused the society's application for a judicial review. However, the RSPCA is pleased that Staffordshire Constabulary have since reviewed their procedures with regard to injured animals."

[Guest sillybear2]

Yep, we had the mad cat women round. I had to bite my tongue so hard to keep myself from saying 'it's just a cat' that it was bleeding by the time they left.

All pussies should be loved, cared for and regularly stroked

[Tin Foil Hat]

they really are a bunch of c***t!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/4889574.stm

Copper's at fault there - no statutory duty perhaps, but there is a duty of care as they take the role of proxy cat owner temporarily, and the action was therefore unreasonable.

Anyway I've got a bugger of a day tomorrow so the second can's going down well. buuurp.

TFH

[vlad the impaler]

Bloody RSPCA. I have owned 5 cats during my life - all except one (run over) lived happy, long lives. I go to the local RSPCA to get a couple of kittens and am visited 3 times (an hour each of continuous questions and formfilling) by 3 uptight old biddies who eventually told me that I could not have them as I did not have a catflap! I now have some idea of how the child adoption process must be. I will never give them one penny. They have millions in Iceland is believe.

All these charities are now on the 'we are actually a business' bandwagon and without the lure of the charitable cause these people would be out of a job. I worked temporarily in a hospice eighteen months ago and the local NatWest were sending in their 'financial experts' to help maximise the profits. Luckily I left the week before they arrived to put their expertise into practice as the area they were going to sort out was the foyer where knitted teddies, notebooks and handmade soaps were sold. Maybe their plan was to place a salesman at a desk and sell some mortgages, insurance or loans to the sad relatives visiting their loved ones.

Yup, they are 'not for profit' businesses, that pay no tax. All good really. A company that I know of that is a competitor to the company I work for are a 'charity', in Care. The bid for contracts like we do, they have a pension fund, a glitzy corporate HQ and the rest. They make a 'surplus' of £1m a year as opposed to our profit of course, and they get to keep all of it. Oh, and the directors (all ex local authority employees) all pay themselves suitable £250k salaries as well.

Not a bad crack really. More and more Care companies are becoming charities; for the children you understand....

[Guest sillybear2]

Not a bad crack really. More and more Care companies are becoming charities; for the children you understand....

No wonder the system does all it can to try and avoid new borns being adopted straight away, they maintain the farce that the birth mother will one day become Mother Teresa and take the child back, meanwhile the poor kid is bounced between foster homes and forms no lasting bond therefore soon resulting in an emotional damaged child without a proper home. Having acquired 'damaged goods' status and not suitable for adoption the poor child is then bounced into the care system at great profit to all the various "do gooders" for many years to come, which traditionally meant further physical and emotional abuse, failing to gain qualifications then ending up over-represented in the prison and metal health systems, and they then become fodder for another set of do gooders.

The thing is about do gooders is the fact they never run out of good to do, whilst if they were actually any good at their jobs they would have made themselves redundant years ago, just like the scientists that eradicated polio from this country, and society would actually be the socialist utopia as originally envisioned.

The RSPCA are basically over funded and over staffed, so they look for trouble, hence the reason they have followed the path of most malcontents and entered the political arena.

Edited May 26, 2009 by sillybear2

[grumpy-old-man-returns]

Don't donate, the RSPCA is one of the richest 'charities' in the UK. The people going round doing the collecting work for dodgy multi level marketing companies like 'Cobra Group'. The person signing you up gets about £10, and their top sales people do 10-15 a day. Tell them to ****** off, throw a bucket of piss on them, set the dog on them, but don't signup or give them a penny

you do make me laugh.

I assume you are the old boomboom ? if so, I used to like your old posts also.

[Live Peasant]

One of my clients is a recruiter specialising in 'Charity' recruitment. Some of the salaries you hear quoted are eye-watering. It's amazing how many of these charity workers are based around Richmond.

[Guest BoomBoomCrash]

you do make me laugh.

I assume you are the old boomboom ? if so, I used to like your old posts also.

Old ID was banned for some reason.

[hev]

Yup, they are 'not for profit' businesses, that pay no tax. All good really. A company that I know of that is a competitor to the company I work for are a 'charity', in Care. The bid for contracts like we do, they have a pension fund, a glitzy corporate HQ and the rest. They make a 'surplus' of £1m a year as opposed to our profit of course, and they get to keep all of it. Oh, and the directors (all ex local authority employees) all pay themselves suitable £250k salaries as well.

Not a bad crack really. More and more Care companies are becoming charities; for the children you understand....

I was out the other night a party of 25 when a collector for a charity appeared with a hand full of glow sticks, explaining ' if you give a pound, you get a glow stick' they all dug deep and I estimated £40 from our party alone despite my protestations that it was a con and those glow sticks are £1 for 20 in poundland. Nice work if she hits 10 parties like ours in one night.

There are loads of one man (usually woman) band animals charities that are desperate for help and their costs dont go on admin and exec pay.