Charity fundraisers face closure following tougher cold calling regulations
Charity fundraising agencies are facing closure as the public wises up to their bombardment tactics and the government cracks down on such businesses with tougher rules.
cold calling
Many agencies have been accused of targeting vulnerable, elderly people, and just last week Pell & Bales, one of the largest telephone fundraisers in the country went out of business due to declining profits.
It blamed “the challenging market place” for its collapse, saying: “Following a period of intense media scrutiny and government measures to regulate the activities of telephone donation agencies, the management team of Pell & Bales have been forced by creditors, to place the company into liquidation," according to the Telegraph.
Pell & Bales was the subject of a Channel 4 Dispatches programme in 2014 on telephone fundraising and was accused of bombarding elderly people with phone calls and disguising the fact its fundraisers were paid employees rather than volunteers.
The show featured an 82-year-old woman who said that she was forced to hide her telephone to avoid the six calls a day she received from fundraisers.
Around 10 telephone fundraisers have gone into liquidation in the past 12 months, reports the Telegraph, including GoGen, which had a client list comprised of British Red Cross, Macmillan Cancer Support and the NSPC.
New rules have been implemented that limit the number of people fundraisers can call.