I Have Just Had Two Teenegers Knock On My Door. The Boy Was Holding...

[lardhelmet]

a box containing what looked like sad vegetables and the girl just stood there all hunched up in the rain. (They didn't offer any ID) The boy said "Good evening. Would you like to contribute something towards "Help for Heroes"? I said "No thank you. I do all my charity donations on line as this village is a "No Cold Calling" zone. The girl looked at me as if she had no idea what I was talking about and the boy looked at me as if to say "Well that doesn't apply to us surely?"

There is a sign at both ends of the village and if they live in the village they must have seen the signs. Why don't they take any notice and can I report them to the charity?

[RATTER15]

Sounds more like a scam!

[woofgang]

they are out in the cold and rain trying to flog sad vegetables....do they need to have their life made worse? Also who are you going to report? You have no name, no address, no picture of them.....dare i say no proof that they even exist!

[Postdog]

Scam too I reckon.

[gness]

I'm not sure if they were selling the veg or asking you to donate veg for a sale but if they were desperate enough to be doing that, hunched up in the rain...I would have had to help...scam or not....but then I'm a wee bit soft.

[Mamyalynne]

I couldn't report them, would as Gness said added a few veg or a tin or two - if a scam as in needing food then why not.

[TheWinner]

I do a lot of collecting for different charities, and they have extremely strict instructions for collectors. Like you have to have a collectors badge attached to your clothes when collecting, which gives a lot of details about the charity,and the registered charity number, the fact that you are an official collector with your name etc. Also, you can only collect on the days granted by your local council, you are not allowed to shake your tin (as this is "soliciting"), and the list goes on and on and on and on, and we all have to adhere to the rules. Even though I support this particular charity, I would not have given.

[TheWinner]

Having said all that, perhaps what they meant.... was not what they said., and this may be what is confusing.
Perhaps..............what they meant was, would you like to donate an item to this sad box of vegetables, which we will then try and sell and we promise you we will donate the money to Help for Heroes. Which is a different kind of scenario completely. Rather than them appearing to be "official collectors".

[boxtops]

It wasn't well organised, whatever it was, whether they were collecting or selling they should have had ID and some explanation of what it was about. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people "collecting" for Help for Heroes because it's a popular charity. Our collectors have ID badges and leaflets.