Why do we allow our public spaces to be taken over by chuggers? Whenever I exit my office above Charing Cross station in search of lunch, I am immediately confronted by no fewer than three charity muggers – each decked out in a garish uniform promoting whichever charity they are being paid for that day.
It is best to avoid eye-contact – otherwise prepare to be bombarded with a flurry of phoney scripted sales patter. ‘Didn’t we go to primary school together?’ Unlikely, I suggest, given our age difference. ‘Still, it must be a big school given you said the exact same thing to the fella five paces in front of me.’ I consider replying, but think better of it.
I dislike chugging for the same reason almost everyone dislikes it: I do not want to be hassled as I go about my business. But there is a deeper reason I dislike it. To avoid having your time wasted with a pushy sales pitch, you are forced to become a colder, crueller, and crucially, less trusting person. The result is a bleak state of affairs where your first reaction to any encounter with a stranger on the street is: ‘How are they trying to get into my wallet?’
In a way, they are like the (literally) bloody-faced liar who prowls Islington’s Stroud Green Road telling passers-by that he has just been mugged in the hope they will give him a tenner ‘for the taxi fare home’. The prudent response is to treat all calls for help with suspicion – yet not all calls are scams. Some people do actually get mugged and deserve our help.
The worst chugging offenders are little better. The ‘anti-knife crime’ magazine sellers Inside Success Union have received more than 50 complaints for intimidating and following members who ignore them. One Mail on Sunday investigation revealed that, of the £3.1 million they raised, £3 million went on salaries and commission. Would-be chuggers, lured in by slick TikTok ads, were told: ‘If someone gave £1,000, you would keep £576, so there’s this opportunity to earn as much as you want.’
The people hawking direct debits to Battersea Cats and Dogs Home at the bottom of Villiers Street are, to be clear, not scammers. If someone signs up, most of their cash will eventually go to the good cause being promoted. But there is a fundamental air of dishonesty to the practice. Who would openly choose to give the first £50 or so of their donation to a cheery young chugger (and the for-profit company that employs them)?
Surely, most would rather the money just went to the cats (or dogs). Given that donating online is just as easy – if not easier – than filling out the chugger’s form, the only explanation for paying that £50 is social awkwardness in the face of high-pressure sales tactics.
I do not want to be hassled as I go about my business
I do not blame the individuals themselves. For most, chugging is insecure, stressful, and far from lucrative work. Unless they employ the unpleasant Glengarry Glen Ross sales tactics that have been drilled into them, they are unlikely to keep their job (and unlikely to want to keep it either; they only earn minimum wage without commission).
Though I spend much of my day job making the case for nuclear power, there is one area where I must begrudgingly credit Greenpeace. In 2004, the eco-campaigners made the choice to drop face-to-face fundraising altogether. They assessed that the money raised (after commission) was not worth the reputational damage.
The problem is that when one charity employs chuggers, the reputational damage extends to all charities. And there is a somewhat zero-sum nature to chugging: people’s capacity to give is not unlimited. When people review their direct debits, they may decide to cut back donations elsewhere. Complaints that a ban on chugging would lead to a dramatic drop in donations are likely overblown.
Better to stamp out the practice altogether. Charities should be given a choice: either ditch commission-based face-to-face fundraising or lose all the tax advantages of being a charity, such as business rates relief and Gift Aid.
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