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. Continue reading →

A consumer body to handle complaints from the public about aggressive or misleading charity fundraising has been formed.

The Fundraising Standards Board (FSB) has already got support from the NSPCC, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) , Unicef and Sense and includes on its board the chief executive of consumer group Which?

Street collecting, known as “chugging” has already drawn public complaints when it has been done aggressively and the degree of hard sell used by charities is expected to be included in the code of conduct to be drawn up.

Sonata Moyinwin, 43, who already has 79 convictions for dishonesty was jailed for eight months and Amy Pidgley, 20 was given an eight month prison term suspended for 12 months with a supervision order.

Southwark Crown Court heard how they drove to the West End pubs in a top-of-the-range BMW and implored drinkers to “please help the homeless”.

Such examples are likely to contribute to the growing and understandable reticence of the public to give money to street collectors, whatever identification they can provide.