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Emails to 'CharityBags'

Headings on this page :

@Introduction
From the media - TV, newspapers
From local councils - eg licensing
From charities
From charity shops
From clothing collectors
From other organisations - eg companies
From the public

Introduction

Computer keyboard (courtesy of James Gardiner)

A reminder of our email address (image) :

The entries below give a flavour of the sorts of emails we receive.

We're very grateful to everyone who has taken the trouble to email us.

Anonymity

With each email below, we've tried hard to get the right balance between :

giving enough information to make it meaningful and interesting
withholding sufficient information to maintain 100% confidentiality (name, email address, location, telephone number, date etc)

About us - section on respecting privacy - emails
Contact us
Requests for help

From the media

Email from a regional BBC TV team - wanting information on clothing collections.

Email from a journalist on a national broadsheet newspaper - wanting information on charity shops and the recession.

Emails from local council licensing officers - asking if we can provide information on specific collectors or charities operating in their area. For example: Have we come across them? What do we know about them? Are they genuine?

Example :

"Do you have any knowledge of . . . Ltd? They are leaving flyers at the moment in the southern part of our area; and are not licensed by us. I've found that they're based at an address in . . . , but at present cannot find out much more about them."

From charities

Email from a national charity which was allowing a company to collect clothes on their behalf. They wanted to know how to get a national exemption certificate (so they didn't have to get separate licences from dozens of different local councils).

Email from a charity which runs an outdoor activity centre for young people. Each year the centre accumulates hundreds of items of surplus clothing and equipment left by participants - many items in good condition. Did we know of any charity which would take the items - eg to sell in charity shops?

From charity shops

Email from the merchandise manager of a national charity :

He wanted to know more about us - such as our funding and status.

Music notation

Email from a small charity in N England with a charity shop. A customer had bought a donated second-hand musical instrument from the shop. It had defects, but these had been pointed out to the customer before purchasing. Later she returned saying she'd changed her mind and wanted a refund. She added that trading standards had told her she was entitled to a refund. The charity wanted our opinion on the legal position (having read the section on consumer law on our charity shops page).

We wrote back with the following information :

our view of the consumer law applicable (eg the Sale of Goods Act)
useful sources of further information (organisations and websites)
the different ways the shop could deal with the issue in practice

Email from the manager of a charity shop in Kent. She thought our figure for the annual turnover of a charity shop was an under-estimate, and suggested we increase the figure.

From clothing collectors

An email - probably from a clothing collector. He explained that collecting clothes is surprisingly expensive, and (in his opinion) charities generally get a good deal and useful publicity.

Email from an organisation wanting to start charitable collections :

"I am looking to purchase around 100,000 Bag Kits with print on the sack and on both sides of the mailer. Could you supply them or tell me where I could get them, and what price per item are they."

We suggested various options - including contacting the Association of Charity Shops (ACS).

Email from a Scottish recycling company - which carries out textile collections on behalf of several well-known charities. They wanted to expand into England. They asked us for information on the licensing rules governing charitable collections in England.

Emails from abroad (especially Eastern Europe) - from importers wanting to buy clothes off us. Eg how much would we charge per tonne?

Examples (verbatim) :

"Hi. My name is . . . . I would like to know how can I to buy 5 tons clothing collection at your company?
Thanks"

"good morning
We're new firm and We would like establish cooperation.
If there is buy used clothing good qualities sorted and unsorted?
What is price per tonne clothings ?
If capability of transport is for poland is which cost and?
Thank You"

"My name is . . . and Im from Romania. I want to ask you if you need leaflet-distribution (sack distributor). ive worked for charity [name] in Newcastle 4 month and activities there is finished. im a seriuos boy I can work hard (I can posting over 1000 per day if is need) i send you a cv [attached] and this latter, tell me please if you need. thank you very much. have good day!! good bye!"

"Do you sell the clothes that you collect? If you do, how do you sell them and what sort of weight do you sell a month?"

From other organisations

Companies - offering to donate clothes etc to charities

Hat

Email from a national high-street clothing chain which had brand-new sample stock (footwear, bags etc) which they no longer needed. They wanted to donate the items to a charity. They'd already contacted charities. Alas, some were lukewarm, and others had failed to reply. Did we know of a charity which would be genuinely interested and co-operative?

We put them in contact with a well-known national charity shop chain. The charity collected the goods (two pallets) and distributed them to its shops. We hope this will lead to a long-term relationship between the two organisations.

Companies - miscellaneous

Email from a national chain of estate agents. They'd had a request from a Clothes Aid 'subsidiary' (franchisee) wanting to rent premises. The agents wanted to know more about Clothes Aid - before deciding whether to let the premises to them.

From the public

Clothing collection leaflet - 'Do Not Delay!'

Public - offering information on collections

Numerous emails giving information on clothing collections.
Sometimes they attach images of the leaflets which they've received.

We're very grateful to the contributors. We try to add the information to the website - especially to the page called House-to-house clothing collectors - an A-Z list

A Leicester resident kindly sent us images of collection flyers delivered to the city's Mosque areas. Most of these had part of the wording in Arabic - eg one from the 'Al-Ain International Trust' (an eyesight charity).

Public - offering clothes etc

Emails from well-meaning people who thought we were charity clothing collectors - offering us bags of clothes (and other items).

We reply explaining that we don't collect clothes. We suggest how they can donate them - eg to charity shops.

Example (2009) :

"We have a very nice corner bath, size 1280 x 1280, which is too good to throw away, would you be interested in collecting it from us? We also have a matching bathroom sink."

Public - wanting information on how to donate - eg local charity shops or collections

Numerous emails asking us for details of their nearest charity shop.

We refer them to various sources of information - including :

the searchable national database of charity shops on the website of the Association of Charity Shops (ACS)
Yellow Pages and Thomson local directories
websites of individual charities

Emails from people who are unable to take their clothes to a charity shop - eg they're disabled or haven't got a car. Do we know of any charity/charity shop which will come to collect the items?

Email from a lady in Surrey with an expensive mattress topper which she no longer wanted. She understood the feathers could be re-used. She wanted to know how to get it cleaned professionally before donating it. (Dry cleaners had told her it needed specialist treatment.)

Public - concerned about deliveries of unwanted collection bags

Emails from people unhappy about receiving unwanted bags.

Some people have told us they'd put prominent notices on their front doors saying they didn't want junk mail, collection bags etc. But clothing collectors ignored the notices - they continued to deliver collection bags. Sometimes it turned out this was because the delivery person was from Eastern Europe and couldn't read English!

People were concerned about several issues :

the waste of plastic bags (environmental concerns - production and disposal of the bags)
what to do with the unwanted bags
resentment that their notices were ignored

Example 1 (from Liverpool) :

"Is there any way of stopping people putting these bags through our door? On average I get 4 per week through my door and I wonder how many old clothes they think that I have. I am just sick and tired of getting these pushed through the door already this week. I have had 4 through the door and have a bet with my husband to see if we get the full set.
Not a happy house holder, living in . . ."

Example 2 (from North Lincolnshire) :

"We have made real efforts to avoid using plastic bags and now take our own bags when we go shopping. However, our efforts are being undermined by the number of charity collection bags being delivered to our house. We get at least one a week and quite often two or three. We don’t use them as we take our unwanted clothing etc to our local charity shop.

Is there any way of stopping these bags being delivered, or is there anything we can do with the large number of unwanted bags that arrive?

I hope that you will be able to help."

Public - miscellaneous

Probate : Email from a lady whose mother had just died. The lady intended to give many of her mother's possessions to charity :

". . . There is the option of giving some/all of the household goods to charity ([tax] Schedule IHT408 + IHT notes p26) and deducting the value of the donations from the amount on which inheritance tax must be paid. This is totally distinct from any issue of leaving a legacy to a charity in a will. . . .

My problem is putting a value on what we are giving. I presume that the value should reflect the likely amount that the stuff can be sold for, less the overheads involved (not the same as the buyer's price).

What I need is an average figure that I can reasonably use for the probate calculations. I should guess that it is something that the charity shop fraternity have a good idea of.

It would be very useful to me and probably many others if you could publish this information. Probably it would need to be by category of donation and would need to be a reasonable - not over optimistic - average figure or range of figures. The American Salvation Army publishes a per item guide that relates to normal American taxes but I would like a per bag - or by weight - sort of figure(s). . . . "

See the page on charity shops for typical prices of goods, together with details of shop overheads.

Home-workers :

Email from a home-worker - wanting us to employ her to fold and pack bags (or do any other work).

Email from a home-worker - wanting us to employ her to "put the leaflets around the bags".