"Charity" clothes collections

gerkeo

I live in a small ish town in the west and recently we are getting at least 4 stickers in the door a week looking for clothes collections for "charities".
after a bit of checking i've found the majority of them to be bogus, one yesterday was for an www.africanpolio.org charity and then today got one for www.orphanhomecare.org, neither of which are legitimate.
A quick search shows them as scams. The stickers normally arrive in the door at about 7am.

has anyone else come across this elsewhere in the country? Any thoughts / suggestions on what to do to stop these collections? Times are tight enough for genuine charities without these p***ks taking the p1ss.

jeckle

Have you reported the matter to the Gardai?

gerkeo

thats the first step and i will be doing it, the local guys will probably not be too interested in it though.

I've seen on previous posts on boards that this same group have been dropping stickers in dublin, donegal and limerick. considering it seems like a nationwide issue would it be better to forward it onto the fraud department?
This article is from 2 years ago here

gerkeo

oops, this was discussed before here

jeckle

You'd never know, as considering that someone has to actually collect the clothes it wouldn't be that hard to catch them. Apart from the Gardai, maybe you could contact a local radio station & maybe the local priest would advise people at mass to be wary?

Has this sort of thing been covered on Joe Duffy do you know? No doubt it has, but it might be no harm in contacting his production team office or those of similar shows.

jeckle

gerkeo wrote: »

oops, this was discussed before here

:eek:......

irish_bob

a fairly well known scam , baschically they bring the clothes back to 3rd world countries and sell the clothes for money

such a pity as its a lovely idea , many people have clothes which is perfectly fine yet is no longer wanted

Max Headroom

I think most people know its a scam, but use it as a way of getting rid of old clothes anyway...we got fed up bringing bags of clothes to the local charity shop only to be told they had enough....:o

stovelid

Couldn't care less to be honest.

Most people are too lazy to gather up the clothes themselves and bring them down to a charity and the clothes will probably be still lying in the back of their wardrobes 15 years later when charities need them.

Somebody comes and takes them away free of charge (albeit under false pretences) and people are getting all worked up about clothes they would have just let rot in most cases.

WeeBushy

gerkeo wrote: »

oops, this was discussed before here

That was AH, hardly call it a discussion

The thing is if they came around with a leaflet saying "we'll take your old clothes off your hands and wear them ourselves" I wouldn't really have a problem. It's the lying that I don't like.

Dades

Max Headroom wrote: »

I think most people know its a scam, but use it as a way of getting rid of old clothes anyway...we got fed up bringing bags of clothes to the local charity shop only to be told they had enough....:o

+1

I was outside my house one afternoon and a foreign chap handed me one those stickers. I told him to hold on while I got him a big bag of stuff that had been hanging around for weeks and he happily trotted off to his car with it.

The second hand stores didn't want them, or the two crates of read-once books I had. Eventually I found a "book bank" in Ringsend that was made of metal so couldn't tell me they didn't want them. :pac:

If someone goes to the trouble of taking stuff off your hands more power to them. As long you don't hand the stuff out under any allusions that it's for charity - what harm?

Oh The Humanity

One night I was up about 4.30 in the morning I heard someone trying the front door handle (locked thankfully) and on realising it was locked then posted in one of these bogus stickers.

Seems some of them are just opportinists who might burgle your house if the door is unlocked.

Delivering stickers can just be a cover for them.

spoonface

I got sick of getting all these false ads in during the Summer so decided to do something about it. I filled up a plastic sack with some noisy tin cans and put it outside the door with the pullstring caught in the door, and then when I heard the rattling the next morning before 8AM I ran down and caught the 2 chancers who were there collecting. They were 2 Belorussian guys who defended themselves like there was no tomorrow, producing a false card of the guy they said they worked for. I told them how I had called the phone number on their advert and checked the company number quoted and it was all false. In the end, what could I do and I sent them on their way. I then watched them walk around the neighbourhood looking for more bags - thankfully nobody left them anything out. I called the Gardai on them and they tackled them as they arrived back at their large white transit van. But as the Gardai explained to me there's nothing they can really do as they're not straight out breaking the law. So they tend to just check their details and tell them not to come back to this area. We get several of those notices a week.

I also heard lately that a car pulls up once a month outside the local clothes recyling bank and the driver uses a fishing rod to extract clothes out of it. This is also considered not illegal so nothing can be done about it.

From what I've heard, any legitimate charities who look for clothes are really losing out to these guys. But it just pisses me off how they can
give this whole false cover story and never get prosecuted for preying on people's generosity. You just know that if this was in the US, they'd be up in court for it.

Dudess

spoonface wrote: »

But it just pisses me off how they can
give this whole false cover story and never get prosecuted for preying on people's generosity. You just know that if this was in the US, they'd be up in court for it.

In court for what? How is it "generosity" to give away stuff you've no use for and sitting there collecting dust?
Tell you what I hate: wastefulness. People throwing perfectly good clothes in the bin or leaving them become mothball-ridden piss me off far more than the "charity clothing collectors".

Joey the lips

If i could respectivly ask of all in this thread if you are considering giving clothes please give them to the saint vincent de paul. all clothes are accepted except of course underware. Any clothes not sold by them are recycled.

They are rolling out bins all over the country.

Thanks

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Rasmus

To those of you who don't care that bogus charity collectors operate collecting unused clothes - there is very good reason that they need to be stopped.

Firstly, these people are getting in the way of real charitable organisations who actually help the needy.
Secondly, why should we let them take clothing to sell when those same clothes can be provided free of charge or the proceeds actually going to those who need it?
Thirdly, not all bogus charities operate in the same way. Some may use items for resale, some may be using the leaflet distribution to case houses or even enter under false pretenses.

By ignoring this problem, and condoning it out of laziness, people are enabling crime of this kind.

dudara

Thread locked as it is quite old

dudara