Charity chuggers employed by Tag Campaigns have been the subject of an undercover investigation by the Sunday Telegraph, following a tip-of from a whistleblower.

This found that members of the public stopped in the street were being aggressively intimidated, misled and lied to by chuggers employed by Tag, in order to persuade them to divulge their mobile phone numbers, to facilitate a text donations campaign. Tag were working on behalf of Marie Curie Cancer Care and it was revealed that its two founders, also the sole shareholders, had taken £1.2 million in dividends in the last three years.

The days of street collections could be numbered as shopkeepers have found that having chuggers outside their premises has put the public off going into their shops, some even crossing the road to avoid them. Telegraph cartoonist Matt hit the public mood spot-on, as usual, with a man on crutches limping away from a hospital A&E department telling his wife “Thank goodness I was run over, otherwise I’d never have got rid of that chugger”