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List of some house-to-house clothing collectors (A-Z)

Headings on this page :

Notes

First, can you help ? . . .

We'd welcome information on other collectors you've come across, so they can be added to the list below - see Contact us.

It would be useful too if you could :

• give some idea of where the collection took place
• provide some information about the leaflet or bag
• include an image of the leaflet or bag (if you have the time).

. . . and remember, the best way of discouraging misleading or bogus collections is to take your donations to a charity shop.

Accuracy

Beware! - information about dubious and bogus collectors is patchy and anecdotal.  Some have confusingly similar names.  The details printed on their leaflets or bags may be incorrect or misleading - for example the names, addresses, registered numbers and telephone numbers of the organisations.

Who's included in this list?

• Organisations known to have carried out house-to-house collections of goods (especially clothing) in the UK (or Eire) since 1999.
   
  Only around three of them were not collecting clothing or similar goods - they were asking for furniture.
• Are they charitable?  The list covers all types of collection - charitable, non-charitable (ie commercial) and hybrids of these two extremes.
  
  Around 90% of the organisations listed mention (or imply) a charitable cause on their leaflets or bags.
• Are they genuine?  The collectors listed cover the whole spectrum - from totally genuine to totally bogus.
• The list excludes small informal collections - eg those conducted by scout/guide groups for jumble sales.

Order of items

The list is arranged A-Z by name of collector and/or charity.

The three columns in the list

To keep the list concise, we've made the entries short and used various abbreviations.

Some of the abbreviations are explained on the page called A-Z list of organisations and key to abbreviations.

We've used the word "charity" loosely in the list  - merely to mean the good cause which is apparently being supported (this is the meaning contained in the 1939 Act).  It may not be: (a) a registered charity, or (b) UK-based, or (c) genuine.

We've used the term "co" ("company") as a convenient shorthand to indicate the collector.  In some cases (strictly speaking) they're not companies.

1. Collector/charity column :

• Bold indicates UK charities.
• Green indicates UK charities which have a "national Exemption Order" - see explanatory section below.
• In many cases the names of both the charity and collector are given.
• You can check out charities via the Charity Commission.
• You can check out companies (ie Limited/Ltd and PLC) via Companies House.

2. ASA column :

An "ASA" entry in this column indicates that a formal complaint was submitted to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and an adjudication made.  Where no date is given in the Details column, the adjudication was before 2004.  See also :

• our page on the Advertising Standards Authority
• the ASA's press release on clothing collections
• the ASA's website
• the bullet below on the ASA.

3. Details column :

• Locations (eg London) indicate where the organisation is based or registered.
• "RChNo" - means Registered Charity Number - eg "RChNo 9534562".
  Note - Do not confuse with registered company number (below).
• "Reg co no" - means registered company number.
• "Incorp" - means incorporated - in other words when a company was set up.
• "est" - means established.
• "t/a" - means trading as.  Fictitious example: "Jones Ltd t/a Jones Recycling".
• "Upheld" (in relation to the ASA) - means that the ASA decided that the complaint was justified.

Charities with national Exemption Orders

In the list we've colour-coded the charities which have national Exemption Orders in respect of house-to-house collections.  Most of these 43 or so charities are large and well-known - eg Oxfam and the Children's Society.

See the page on national Exemption Orders for more information.  

As a rule of thumb, when you're looking for a collection which is genuine, choose the ones which have a national Exemption Order.

Do the goods go to charity shops?

Where a charity is mentioned (or implied) - do the goods go to charity shops? :

• Alas, only 5-10% of the collectors listed below send the goods to charity shops.  Yet usually these collections raise the most money for good causes.
• All the other collectors listed sell the goods on commercially, so the goods don't go to charity shops.
• You can check out most of the charities which run charity shops on the website of the Association of Charity Shops (ACS).

Other lists of collectors

• As far as we know, our list below is the largest list of collectors which is available on the Internet.  (However, it probably represents just 5-10% of the collectors operating in Britain.)
• The Charity Commission keep a national database of clothing collectors for use by their own staff, but we assume that its contents are not normally available to the public.
• The ASA - The website of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has around 25 adjudications relating to misleading clothing collections.  They're a very useful resource (often neglected).
  See our page on the ASA for details.
  See also the section above on the ASA (describing the ASA column in the list below).
• Almost all the 300 or so local council licensing departments keep a public register of applications for licences for charitable collections (under the 1939 Act).  However, we're not aware that any of these registers are accessible on the Internet.
  See our page on local councils' registers of collection licences.
• Searching the Net - We've found many useful items on clothing collectors on the Net - such as press releases from regulators (eg licensing and trading standards), newspaper articles and information in blogs and forums.  However, hardly any of them give lists of collectors.  A notable exception is www.headington.org.uk  

List of clothing collectors (A-Z)

 

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