100 an hour sign up to no-call list to stop charities pestering them
MORe than one hundred people every hour are signing up to a charity no- call list since it launched yesterday.
Donors are banning charities from pestering them using the Fundraising Preference Service, which was set up following a Daily Mail investigation.
this allows people to block contact from charities that are inundating them with unwanted begging letters and fundraising calls.
Signing up does not bar all charities from calling – only the ones donors no longer want to hear from.
At 4.30pm yesterday – just 11 and a half hours after the FPS launched – watchdogs had received 1,312 ‘suppression requests’. this is a rate of 114 every hour, or almost two every minute.
Watchdogs said they ‘hope it [the FPS] is going to play a key role in helping to restore public trust in charities’.
the FPS has been introduced by the Fundraising Regulator, which was set up after the Daily Mail revealed how some of Britain’s biggest and most trusted charities were hounding vulnerable people for cash.
In an award winning investigation in 2015, reporters found charities were using high-pressure ‘boiler room’ sales tactics to raise money.
Fundraisers were ordered to be ‘brutal’ and ‘ferocious’ when asking for money. Bosses told them that members of the public ‘have no excuse’ not to give.
Some charities were calling people on the Government’s ‘ no- call’ list, the telephone Preference Service, and were prepared to take money from those who told them they had dementia.
Reporters found donors’ personal details being traded and sold by charities. In some cases, the personal data of vulnerable people was ending up in the hands of conmen.
the Mail’s investigation led to 13 charities being fined a total of £181,000 for breaking data laws. they included the RSPCA, British heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK and the NSPCC.
there was also outrage over the treatment of Olive Cooke, a 92-year- old poppy seller. Mrs Cooke, from Bristol, took her own life in 2015 after battling breast cancer and depression.
her death led to serious ques- tions about fundraising tactics after it emerged she had been sent around 270 letters from charities every month, as well as being called repeatedly.
the Mail found her details had been traded between charities because she was known to be generous.
the revelations led to a major government inquiry led by Sir Stuart etherington and the establishment of the Fundrais- ing Regulator, a tough new organisation that oversees how charities raise money.
the FPS was launched at 5am yesterday. By around 9.30am, 484 people had signed up and made requests to block charities that had been contacting them.
It cost £250,000 to set up and is expected to cost £450,000 a year to run, less than expected.
In its first year, the Fundraising Regulator, received 700 complaints. Most were resolved by the charities. In eight cases, it had to launch a full investigation and in seven, charities had broken rules.
Jenny Williams, who sits on the regulator’s board, said the FPS was set up ‘to address the frustration’ many felt over how often they were contacted. She added: ‘We hope it is going to play a key role in helping restore public trust in charities.’
Lord Michael Grade, chairman of the Fundraising Regulator, added: ‘ We should all be grateful to the media for exposing the wrongdoing that has led us to this place. ’
‘Known to be generous’