Wednesday 23 September 2015

The hard sell!

Once again the way good causes raise money is in the spotlight.....charities who do good work are guilty of sharing our particulars with others on the assumption that if we give to one good cause we may be able to support another....

I have covered this in a previous blog after finding evidence that my husband had been captured by an unscrupulous firm who kept promising him large sums of money which he had won!

To say I was shocked is an understatement . My husband, a highly intelligent man had fallen for a scam! I had already realised this before we knew that he had a brain tumour and stopped the continual paying out of money for small items which were actually rubbish.....

Another man in the next village had also fallen foul of another firm, confidently telling me that several thousand pounds were going to be paid into his account..... They never were of course.......

These two examples have made me very wary....I don't pick up the phone unless I recognise the number .

The number of begging letters arriving every day are amazing, often from causes I already support. I often fail to open the envelope so I may be missing vital information at times but putting them into the bin on arrival saves my blood pressure .

The fact that people get easier to target if they are old makes this much worse... I know several old people who feel harassed by continual demands from trusted charities and this is the real problem....once bitten twice shy....there may well be very worthy causes we are turning down.....but I can live with that.

I have been bloody minded for most of my life....I shall not go soft in my old age specially where my hard earned pensions are concerned...

It's time for charities to sort themselves out and failing that, putting legislations in place to prevent the worst abuse of the elderly is ssential now in this mass commncation age!

 

 

 

1 comment:

UKViewer said...

I only respond to charities that I know and preferably via direct debit. I refuse to open letters even from those that I support as they're normally asking me for a one off payment or to increase my giving. I prefer the freedom of donating without providing contact details, which makes life quieter. You have to be ruthless or the letters will expand expotentially. Some of the more aggressive charities are the service ones, who have now lost my support. I support my former Regiment(s) and no others. The British Legion does good work, but once it targets you, doesn't let up. Another is the Soldiers Charity (ABF) who persist in writing, despite my requesting no further correspondence. Bah, humbug.