Chuggers
For those that don't know, the charity muggers that harass you on the street or in the bus queue are not volunteers from the charity, they are paid professionals hired by an agency that has been commissioned by a charity. They cannot accept cash donations, they only want to set up Direct Debits from your account to the charity. Why? Because their agency gets a flat fee, usually about £50, for every DD arrangement they get.

Now under the law regarding direct debits, you have 28 days to cancel, and you can of course cancel at any time once the payments have started coming. Many people will cancel, having been bullied by the chugger into signing a form they didn't want to, before they have paid the charity £50, or often anything at all. The agency don't care, they still got their £50.

So, reasons to hate chuggers:

1 - They are parasites, who often leech money from the charities they are supposed to support by bullying people into signing up who will cancel anyway, putting the charity out of pocket.
2 - They are paid professionals, paid to tell you a sob story about the poor little kiddywinks or whatever, they they personally don't give a rat's arse about. If they care so much about helping the charity, why don't they donate their wages to it and leave you alone? (this is a good question to put to them if you really want to see them squirm.)
3 - They are almost all stage school graduates, trained actors, who are professionally pretending to care about a different cause every week. Ask them if acting turned out to be the glamour career they expected.
(Axeman Jim, Fri 2 May 2008, 23:45, 3 replies)

You get some that do care about the charity
But not all chuggers are agents. I think it's Greenpeace that I know somebody works for. They pay them £9.50 an hour (not commission) to do as a chugger does, with the same 'you can cancel' but with added 'get paid anyway'.

I did chugger work when I was absolutely desperate once. Difference is that I worked for an agency, but got a lot less, and the charity was a local one, concerning the people who I door-to-doored DIRECTLY (I think it was the park near them which was full of smackheads). Problem is, they employed me without checking I could do sales patter, told me 3 lines about the charity and told me to 'go get some money'.

£10 per sale, I'd walk away with £100 a day minimum. That's £600 a week cash in hand.
( Methylene Blue - electrohead, Fri 2 May 2008, 23:54, closed)

Argh
bollocks to them. the high street in Southampton is littered with them on any given day of the year. But then when you're blessed with frown lines you could base-jump off, all you need to say is "not interested, sorry" and they tend to leave you right alone! A stern, grumpy demeanour doesn't tend to attract the ladies but it does help in fucking off everyone you don't wish to speak to.

No reason to be rude to them of course, but most people tend not to accost you if you naturally look like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle :-)
(keyboardman, Sat 3 May 2008, 1:24, closed)

If I'm
walking through town very quickly, in a suit, at 2.01pm flicking agitated glances at my watch, how difficult is it to work out that I'm in a hurry? You shouldn't jump out in front of me, and I shouldn't have to say "sorry, I'm late already." And then you particularly shouldn't say "Ooooooh, she's late already!" in a sarky 'Get you' voice. Well done: you've just ensured that it'll be a cold day in hell before I give any money to Age Concern. Cunt.
(miffytherabbit, Sun 4 May 2008, 11:53, closed)