Etiquette School is in session! > "I'm afraid that won't be possible."

Charity Guilt Trip

<< < (4/10) > >>

Stormtreader:
In the UK these are "chuggers" - charity muggers.
I had one once call me a "tight b**ch" as I walked away, I was so shocked it didnt occur to me til afterwards that I should have gotten his name and reported him.

Twik:
I think that the problem with people canvassing for charities is that they are not operating on the same principles as people in their daily lives. This is their job. And unfortunately, many times for their job, they are trained not to take "no" for an answer, while at the same time trying to create an atmosphere that keeps the "mark" treating them like friends, who it would be rude to refuse.

When a previous poster says "It was like she didn't hear me," that's because the canvasser is trained not to think, "Oh, she says she can't contribute, too bad!". Instead, s/he is trained to think, "Hmm, what strategy can I use to make them change their minds?"

There are polite canvassers out there, certainly. But there are also a lot of shady companies whose only interest at the end of the day is that they get lots of money out of the people they call. While one must not be overtly rude to such people, one needs to switch from "Oh, this guy called up and refers to me by name in every sentence, it would be rude to end the call before he does," to "This is a commercial call - he really has no interest in my wellbeing, and it is not rude to say I'm not interested and hang up."

MrTango:
I tend to regard people canvassing for charities in the same way as street-corner petition hawkers and those people in malls who agressively try to sell everything from plastic shoes to annoyingly-scented hand creams.

I refuse eye contact, ignore anything they say, and keep walking.

Portugal79:
my friend who did donate to a charity was accosted on the street by one of the "chuggers" as there known in the UK. (it stands for charity muggers), when she explained she already donated to the charity. they then asked her to donate more. she went home cancelled her direct debit to the charity. fired off an angry letter to said charity that her reason was, she didn't appriciate the charity requesting more then she could afford and now donates to a more appriciate charity

Birdie Wife:
I work for a large charity in the UK and the powers that be made a decision a few years back to contract out some direct marketing to a professional firm - these are the people who stand in the street with the clipboards and stop people walking by and try to get people to sign up to a monthly donation.They don't work for the charity, they work for the marketing company, and they are target-driven, not charity-driven. We started getting a lot of complaints because of this, and the average time that people signed up for dropped quite dramatically.

For right or wrong, they are still working under contract for us, but my charity is managing them a lot more carefully now than they were, and if they get a complaint, it goes straight back to the marketing company and action is taken. If you're unhappy with the conduct of these marketers, please, please, take the details of when and where you were and take it back to the charity so they can do something about it. Their conduct reflects badly on the charity, which is taken very seriously indeed.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page