A collector came to the door for the flood appeal and I sent him away. Now I feel awful. How do you check these people?

#1quilterjean(Joined Sep 2025 · 22 posts)June 9, 2026, 5:12 pm

This has been bothering me for two days so I am going to type it out.

Young man at the door on Saturday, high vis vest, lanyard with a photo card, clipboard, collecting for the families flooded out along the river valley two weeks ago. He was polite, he knew the names of the villages, he had photographs. He asked for cash or a card tap on a little reader, and when I said I would rather give online later he said their online page takes a percentage and cash gets there this week.

I said no thank you and closed the door. Then I stood in the hall feeling like a horrible person, because those families are real, the flooding was on the news every night, and this lad was standing in the rain doing something I was too suspicious to support.

So which was it. Was he genuine and I was rude, or was I right and just don't know why? And is there any way to tell on the doorstep in the thirty seconds you actually have?

#2Walt F(Joined Jan 2026 · 17 posts)June 9, 2026, 7:40 pm

You were not rude. You declined to hand cash to a stranger at your own front door, which is a completely ordinary thing to do, and no genuine fundraiser is harmed by it.

The line about the online page taking a percentage would have been enough for me. Every charity I have ever given to would far rather have your card payment through their own site than untraceable notes in a bucket.

#3David MercerModerator(Joined Jan 2025 · 214 posts)June 10, 2026, 8:55 am

Jean, you did the right thing, and I want to explain why in a way that hopefully removes the guilt rather than just overriding it, because the guilt is the mechanism here and it will come back the next time someone knocks.

I lost most of my savings to a scam a few years ago, and one of the things I had to relearn afterwards was how to give at all. What I settled on is a rule that sounds cold and is actually the opposite: I never decide who gets my money at the moment I am asked. Not on the doorstep, not on the phone, not from a message in a group chat. If an appeal moves me, I note the cause, close the door or the tab, and then give on my own time, through the organisation's own website, typed in myself. That way the impulse to help survives and the pressure does not.

Applied to Saturday, that means you did not refuse those families. You refused a stranger's payment terminal. Those are different acts, and you can still make the first one right this afternoon.

On the specifics that made me nod along while reading. Cash, or a tap on a reader nobody can identify afterwards, leaves you no record and no route back. The urgency framing, cash gets there this week, has no basis, because relief funds do not distribute faster because the donation arrived as notes. And the percentage line is the tell that made me sit up, because it is a variation on something I have seen in a dozen scripts: an apparently generous reason why you should pay by the method that suits them. Whenever somebody explains why the money must move a particular way, that explanation is the thing to look at hardest.

Whether that particular lad was a fraudster, a commission fundraiser for a real charity, or an honest volunteer having a bad afternoon, I genuinely cannot tell you. Legitimate doorstep and street fundraising does exist. The point is that you cannot verify any of it in the thirty seconds you have, which is why the answer is never "assess the collector" and always "move the decision to a time and channel where verification is possible".

The longer write up, including the disaster appeal pattern and what to check in a charity register, is in charity and disaster donation scams. And if you want the shape that sits under all of this, how to spot a scam is the plain version.

#4Grace H(Joined Mar 2025 · 31 posts)June 10, 2026, 12:18 pm

The percentage claim is nonsense in the other direction too. Card processing does cost a charity something small, but a cash collection has real costs as well, counting, banking, and often a fundraising company taking a slice off the top. Nobody says that bit out loud on the doorstep.

What I do now is keep it dull. Two charities I have chosen, standing orders, and everything else gets a polite no at the door regardless of the cause. Removes the entire category of decision.

#5tomd52(Joined Jun 2025 · 19 posts)June 11, 2026, 7:31 am

Slight disagreement with Grace, only because I think the blanket no makes some people feel worse rather than better, and guilt is what tips them into paying next time.

I would rather people had a script. Mine is "I don't give at the door, but write the charity name on this and I'll look it up tonight." Genuine collectors say fine. The other sort get vague about the name, which tells you everything in about four seconds.

#6quilterjean(Joined Sep 2025 · 22 posts)June 13, 2026, 3:47 pm

I like the script idea, thank you. Something to say beats standing there feeling scrutinised.

I did look up the appeal that evening. There is a proper regional fund with an actual address and a registration number, so I gave to that one, by card, from their own site. Whether the man on Saturday was anything to do with it I will never know, and I have decided to stop trying to find out.

What I keep thinking about is how easily the shame steered me. I wasn't worried about losing money at the door, I was worried about looking suspicious in front of a stranger I will never see again. That seems like the actual weak point, and it isn't really about scams at all.