Collection concern
0:00am Fri Apr 03, 2009
There are fears Bingham residents are being misled by clothing collections many people assume are for charity.
Bags with leaflets posted through doors asking for unwanted clothes and shoes are raising concern as to who benefits.
Nottinghamshire County Council’s trading standards team say anyone concerned should hand in suspicious bags and leaflets at Bingham Library for investigation.
By law, charities need a licence to collect door-to-door but limited companies do not.
It means some collections, although legal, are not necessarily purely for charity.
One organisation collecting in Bingham has prompted criticism this week.
Do Not Delay! claims to raise money for a breast cancer prevention programme in Lithuania, and uses a pink ribbon logo — similar to those used by breast cancer charities.
It says each month it makes a minimum contribution of £1,200 to the project from the sale of donated clothing.
The company, Intersecond Ltd, is listed as the organisation’s agents in the UK and Ireland.
The chairman of the Bingham branch of Cancer Research UK, Mrs Jane Duffy, said some of the leaflets were misleading.
“People in Bingham will often say they have put clothes in a bag for us but they haven’t because that’s not us. We don’t collect clothes,” she said.
“I think it is disgraceful that they could be led into thinking it’s Cancer Research. Some of them are so ambiguous.”
A county council trading standards manager, Miss Sarah Houlton, said it was a problem they recognised.
She said because the Do Not Delay! bag featured a pink ribbon it could be seen as being authorised by breast cancer charities.
She said people often confused a registered company number with a registered charity number.
Miss Houlton urged residents to read the leaflets and bags carefully and if they had suspicions they should hand them in to be investigated by the trading standards scam-buster team.
A spokesman for the Charity Commission said if a clothing collection company’s advertising leaflet did not mention the word charity they were probably not breaking the law.
“Often the language used in leaflets requesting donations of clothing can be misleading and the recipient assumes the collection is for a charity because of the wording used,” she said.
“Many people may be happy to give their old clothes to these companies, but they shouldn’t be under any illusion that they are charitable because the clothing collector will be making a personal profit out of the second-hand clothes.”
Mrs Helen Shanan, of Kestrel Drive, Bingham, said she found some of the bags misleading.
“If it was a product in a shop it would be like breaching copyright because they have copied the logo and style of writing used,” she said.
“The official breast cancer campaign is very well known for using pink and they have purposely copied this.
“In my opinion they are taking these items off people under false pretences and deliberately misleading people.”
An office administrator with Intersecond Ltd, Mrs Yevgeniya Haughey, denied that the use of the pink ribbon logo was misleading.
“It is not copyrighted by any British organisation,” she said.
“ It’s up to people to decide if they want to donate to a British charity or a foreign charity.
“We include a phone number and email address. We don’t intend to hide anything.”
She said Intersecond Ltd worked on behalf of Azzara, a registered charity in Lithuania.
She said the money raised was used to pay for mobile breast-cancer screening units in Lithuania.
Mrs Haughey said: “The text of the leaflets has been checked by trading standards and approved.”
A trading standards officer, Mr Matt Rawson, said the text was checked by his department.
He said: “They were worded fairly carefully, but if we don’t take action it doesn’t mean they have been given the all clear. It is very difficult to prove these things in court. We are not necessarily giving it our approval.
“Just because we haven’t got an opportunity to do something this time it doesn’t mean it’s legitimate,” he said.
