Office of the Third Sector Homepage
Last updated: 23 November 2008
3 December 2007
The Office of the Third Sector has teamed up with the Charity Commission, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the Trading Standards Institute (TSI), representatives from the charity sector and other stakeholders to tackle the problem of bogus charity clothing collections by raising public awareness of the issue.
Agencies have been receiving an increasing number of complaints about leaflets distributed through letter boxes asking for donations of clothes, shoes and other household items. Although the vast majority of leaflets are from genuine registered charities, some of these leaflets come from anonymous commercial companies. Often these leaflets are worded in such a way that encourages people to assume that the items are collected for charity.
The Association of Charity Shops estimates that charities lose between £2.5 million and £3 million a year through theft and people giving clothing to organisations that they think are charities but may be commercial companies collecting for profit.
Charities and charitable institutions perform many valuable services in the community and often depend on voluntary donations from the public. The Government wants to encourage giving to genuine charities and maintain public trust and confidence in charitable giving.
We have therefore launched a consumer awareness drive across England and Wales to ensure that people who want their donated clothes and other goods to go to a charity know what information to look out for on leaflets and bags that come through their letter box.
We have produced a leaflet for householders with top tips to help check clothing collection leaflets. The leaflets are being delivered by company Clothes Aid to households in particular areas where problems have been reported; the West Midlands, North-East London, Bristol, Gloucester and across England and Wales.
These leaflets can be printed from the links below as well as other stakeholder websites. Please feel free to print and distribute them to raise public awareness.
Further information can be found on these other useful websites: