Spam crusade lands charity in hot water with data watchdog

Typically it is energy improvement peddlers or debt help specialists that are disgraced by Britain's data watchdog for spamming unsuspecting households, but the latest entrant in the hall of shame is a charity. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has ordered Penny Appeal, which sends aid to more than 30 crisis-hit …

[tfewster]

STOP

"Penny Appeal has 30 days to stop sending marketing comms for which it doesn't have valid consent"

What? No, stop sending marketing comms UNTIL you've checked consent has been given. It's not like they're first time "accidental" offenders.

Bloody chuggers (Charity muggers).

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure there are many worthwhile charities out there, but since the government brought in special taxation rules for charities, it's become the organisation of choice for scammers and professional beggars who line their own pockets while supported "a good cause".

Some years ago, the company I worked for was being relentlessly spammed by a "charity" and I went as far as phoning their managing director and asking them to stop emailing us. Her response was that according to her marketing people we must have at some point given consent so it was perfectly OK for them to email us. And although their emails contain a unsubscribe link, there's no legal obligation for them to actually unsubscribe people. And so they carried on regularly spamming us.

I wrote a carefully worded letter telling them that they were explicitly not authorised to access to our email server and that I would collect evidence of any further accesses with a view to prosecuting them under section 1 of the computer misuse act (unauthorised access to a computer). I printed out the act, highlighted the relevant passage and suggested they consult a solicitor. The spam stopped and we never heard from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine donating to a charity

and seeing that donation ending up paying a fine ....

[heyrick]

Re: Imagine donating to a charity

Possibly less onerous than the donations going to giving certain members of staff a good wage.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Imagine donating to a charity

Very simple answer to that. The trustees of a charity are responsible for its actions. Fine them.

[Lord Elpuss]

Next time you think charity=good, remember: BLM is (was) also a charity.

Just because something CLAIMS to be supporting a good cause, doesn't mean it isn't run by scumbags intent on lining their own pockets.

[captain veg]

BLM is (was) also a charity

So is Eton college. What's your point?

-A.

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: BLM is (was) also a charity

"So is Eton college. What's your point?"

My point is that BLM was set up by, run by, and ultimately abused by scumbags who used it to line their own pockets. Eton College generally wasn't, and isn't.

I fail to see which part of this is hard to understand.

[captain veg]

Re: BLM is (was) also a charity

You seem to have confused BLM and BLMGN(F).

Incidentally, plenty of scumbags lined their pockets out of going to Eton.

-A.

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: BLM is (was) also a charity

I didn’t confuse anything. BLM, and everything associated with it, is nothing more than a scam concept staffed and supported by grifters, workshy oxygen thieves and professional victims, with the singular intent of padding their nests at the expense of the gullible and weak.

Clear enough for you?

[captain veg]

Re: BLM is (was) also a charity

Perfectly clear: you don't like black people.

-A.

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: BLM is (was) also a charity

Wrong. Thanks for playing though. Better luck next time.

[jospanner]

I sense the issue here is larger than a misappropriation of funds.

[Lord Elpuss]

Ooh do you?

[Anonymous Coward]

BLM did support Black owned businesses, it's just that it was one specific Black owned business and the support was buying a mansion for $6M, the sole employee of said business had bought for $3.1M less than a year earlier. At any rate, I'm sure it was above board, since said mansion flipper was a personal friend of the charity founder.

[Cav]

BLM = good.

[Lord Elpuss]

Patrice Cullors, is that you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Charity sends aid to more than 30 crisis-hit countries?

The charity sector is of most benefit to itself. Expends most energy in fund raising to pay their big salaries.

[captain veg]

just stop it

I wish everyone would stop giving money to charities.

Well, I say "everyone". It's well known that poorer people give much more, as a proportion of their wealth, than the rich.

If a cause is good enough it ought to be paid for out of general taxation. That is, at least notionally, progressive.

I don't give to charity out of principle, which is my right. The problem is that the supply of charities responds to the demand, which is why we have the obscene spectacle of supposedly good causes spending huge amounts of money on marketing and executive salaries. I can only suppose that the demand is driven by some kind of vague guilt-shame. Don't do it.

-A.

[jospanner]

Re: just stop it

Thank you. I’m really glad I saw a comment like this in the wild. I always get annoyed by those “top up to the nearest £” prompts from Tesco and McDonalds and so on. If companies like this and their owners paid their fking tax and groups like these needn’t exist. Public services are far more efficient than charities, if only because they don’t need to spend 70% of it (not an exaggeration) on advertising campaigns and marketing droids.

[SCP]

Re: just stop it

If a cause is good enough it ought to be paid for out of general taxation.

That might be one view of the purposes of taxation, an alternative would be that taxation should be strictly for the causes necessary for the maintenance of a well regulated and fair society. Good doesn't enter into it. There are a lot of causes that might generally be regarded as "good" but not necessary - extending taxation to cover these is likely to be punitive to the poorer (richer folks tend to have the flexibility to arrange their finances in a "tax efficient" manner). It is also the case that the government may not choose to finance the "good cause" in the way a great many people would like - the corruption in COVID PPE contracts is a recent case in point. At least with charities I can decide which causes I wish to support and which organizations I think can best serve those causes.

[doublelayer]

Re: just stop it

"If a cause is good enough it ought to be paid for out of general taxation."

And if you think it is good enough but a lot of others don't, then it won't be. That's why charities exist. Some of them are fraudulent, and some are honest but bad at their jobs, but that doesn't mean that all of them fall into those two groups. You can look at charities that do something you think is worthwhile that isn't being covered by government budgets, and if you think they deserve your donations, donate. Or you can decide that nothing is and not donate. Your understandable decision not to donate does not mean that others should not do it or the systems that charities use should not exist.

[captain veg]

Re: just stop it

And then you get charitable fundraising to buy an MRI scanner for the local hospital, or text books for the school. It just lets government off the hook.

-A.

[doublelayer]

Re: just stop it

If you want to campaign for government to pay for that, you can. People can vote for it. Your attempts to do that lobbying would likely themselves be considered charitable, though you have to be careful as ones that get too political often require more paperwork. That is not the only kind of charitable activity, however. If, for example, I want to see more medical programs in another country, my government is unlikely to raise local taxes for all of the programs that could theoretically be useful because there is a nearly unlimited number of projects that could use funding and a lot of people don't think their taxes should be primarily directed at other countries. That's when voluntary donations start to make a lot of sense. There are places to which I donate that aren't covered by taxation, and most of them are ones where people probably don't think they should be covered by taxation.

[captain veg]

Re: just stop it

Foreign aid expenditure is measured in billions of dollars. For better or worse.

Oxfam raises peanuts in comparison (i.e. some hundreds of millions) but makes donors feel good inside. Shame about antisemitism and sexual misconduct.

Do-gooding simply isn't a replacement for doing good.

-A.

[StewartWhite]

Re: just stop it

So I need to specifically campaign for the Government to pay for what it has already said it would pay for and that we've already paid our taxes for?

MRI scanners for hospitals and text books for schools are NOT optional extras. These are core items that only the Liz Trusses of this world think we should buy for ourselves: text books feasible, MRI scanners less so - unless anybody has got £30K+ lying around...

[Graham Cobb]

Re: just stop it

I'm certainly not going to suggest that Government funding for the health service is sufficient, but I can accept that there are genuine disagreements over both the amount and the allocation of resources. As such, individuals may well have perfectly reasonable disagreements about the relative priority of having another MRI scanner available vs other healthcare spending (or even spending on other priorities - there is certainly room for disagreement over whether before we buy another MRI scanner to reduce waiting lists in leafy UK we should spend some of that money in providing more basic medical care in deprived parts of the world).

So, leaving us some disposable income to choose to allocate to charities or other things as we personally wish seems fairly reasonable.

[doublelayer]

Re: just stop it

Am I failing to express myself correctly? I said that, if you think the government is not paying enough, you can campaign for it to change. It doesn't matter what you think they should be spending the money on, because you can campaign for anything. You are taking a general point about what charities can be used for and deciding that I meant that charities should be buying everything the government should. I did not say it, nor do I intend that. If you think the government is breaking its promises, you can join everyone else in the world who also thinks so, and you have a few options about what you'll do about it.

[LybsterRoy]

Re: just stop it

-- If a cause is good enough it ought to be paid for out of general taxation --

I have only one objection to this. Inefficient as most charities seem to be I'm positive the gubermint can do "better"

[Lazlo Woodbine]

Re: just stop it

Cameron's "Big Society" initiative put the final nail in the "government doing good work" coffin, since then, anything that helps but can't turn a profit has been delegated to voluntary bodies and charities.

[Cav]

Re: just stop it

Just admit that you are selfish. You know perfectly well that people want more choice in where their money goes, and it's not into general taxation for government to waste on subsidies for companies that don't need them. As someone else mentioned, government may not see situation X as a priority. If I do then that's where I want to choose to send my money.

Are you really advocating for government to decide where your money should go?

I know - I don't agree with how you spend your money. So give it all to me and let me spend it more wisely. I'll give you enough for the basics of life but any discretionary spending of your money should be my choice, not yours. See how stupid that sounds?

[captain veg]

Re: just stop it

In a democracy, government is us.

I don't accept for a second that it is selfish to want everyone to pay their fair share. Charitable giving spectacularly fails to get anywhere near that.

-A.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are web site that list charities by efficiency, the % of their income actually doled out to the cause itself and not to administration. It’s a good idea to research the charities before giving them your money.

[Doctor Syntax]

Measuring efficiency

The Samaritans came out very badly on this sort of rating. To achieve their aims what they needed was to provide phones for volunteers to answer and rooms to locate them all in. Phones and office spaces ere apt to be classed as administration.

Measurement is hard, aspecially when you want to do it properly.

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: Measuring efficiency

Samaritans' bad result had next to nothing to do with supplying phones for volunteers. A VoIP server and a bunch of handsets costs pennies in the scheme of things.

Of course if you're giving hundreds of your volunteer staff un-MDMed iPhone 15s and expecting them all to be there and accounted for at the end of the month, then yes that could be an expensive proposition. But then that's fully, 100% on you for being an idiot.

[Zippy´s Sausage Factory]

This wasn't an accident

We all know this was some middle manager who thought they was clever. They got asked about the opt outs and said "why do we want people to opt out? Just ignore that, we want to reach everyone, nobody cares about the opt outs". (I suspect there may have been some "do as you're told" and "who's the boss here" involved as well)

[Zibob]

No fine?

So just willfully advertising that you can do this and be given leeway to 30 days. So realistically that means they have 11 months of free message abuse. Just take a break out every 29 days.

[Doctor Syntax]

"Penny Appeal remains committed to continuous improvement in seeking to foster the highest standards of governance."

Really? Fine the trustees and they'll be very committed indeed.

[David 132]

The fact that they’d already been caught doing exactly the same thing previously, shows their words to be a fib.

I detect a certain “we’re good people doing a good thing so the rules don’t apply to us” sanctimony here.

[Dizzy Dwarf]

RNLI vs chuggers

There were some people at Waterloo the other day. Just standing there, not being aggressive or anything, just shaking a bucket with RNLI branding. People couldn't wait to give them their loose change.

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

Where I am, chugging and/or shaking the bucket is illegal. If you want to collect on the street, you can stand there with a hi-viz and an (approved, licensed and tamper-proofed) collection receptacle, but you can't approach people or shake/jingle at them in order to attract attention. Occasionally some scummy out-of-town students on 100% commission will try it on, and the local population seem to relish the challenge of teaching them a well deserved lesson when they step out of lane.

One of the vastly better laws, in my opinion.

[captain veg]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

Shouldn't sea rescue be a publicly funded service, like ambulances?

A.

[heyrick]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

In modern Britain, public money goes to paying MPs expenses and helping to alleviate the "tax burden" of the rich.

[doublelayer]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

"Shouldn't sea rescue be a publicly funded service, like ambulances?"

There probably is some government-funded rescue activity, and as a non-UK resident, I don't know what the RNLI do. However, you start getting into areas like this:

1. What if the government's ideas of how much sea rescue is needed is less than the amount you wish to see?

2. What happens outside their national waters?

3. What happens if the people needing rescue are not citizens?

4. Since it's often a major political issue, what happens if the people needing rescue are attempting to migrate illegally?

If your answers to the above questions suggest that the government is doing less than you want it to, you can have something to add to the available resources. If the government is specifically acting in a way you don't think is right, your additional resources can be used in the way that you think is better.

[captain veg]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

> What if the government's ideas of how much sea rescue is needed is less than the amount you wish to see?

What if the RNLI charity can't rescue everyone that needs it because of funding constraints?

> What happens outside their national waters?

Completely different matter. It's a UK-based organisation. It does sterling work in UK waters. Are you proposing that a UK charity should be patrolling the oceans?

> What happens if the people needing rescue are not citizens?

Rescue doesn't care.

> what happens if the people needing rescue are attempting to migrate illegally?

Idem.

-A.

[doublelayer]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

"What if the RNLI charity can't rescue everyone that needs it because of funding constraints?"

Then that's unfortunate. They're probably happy that they were able to save some people, which wouldn't have happened if their funding was zero.

"Completely different matter. It's a UK-based organisation. It does sterling work in UK waters. Are you proposing that a UK charity should be patrolling the oceans?"

As I stated, I am not that familiar with the RNLI specifically. Some charities that do sea rescue do extend past their nation's national waters, whether that be patrolling the open ocean, or more likely, rescuing people who are sort of near national waters but far enough out that it becomes international. Whether the RNLI specifically chooses to do so isn't relevant to my point, which is that an organization that receives voluntary funding can choose whether to operate outside the country more easily than government-funded bodies.

There are charities that do things that governments choose not to do. The benefit is that, instead of needing public support, because you are taking the public's money to fund it, you can have the subset of the public who care contribute the money. If you rely on convincing the government to fund all of the different things that people want done, you'll create a lot of pointless political fights instead. The good news is that this isn't a binary thing. You can easily have government funding for some charitable activities and allow a different charity to use voluntary donations. This also doesn't affect you personally, because if you don't want to donate to some charity, you simply don't. None of that exonerates a charity violating the law like this one has done, but just because one has doesn't mean that all do.

[captain veg]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

>> "What if the RNLI charity can't rescue everyone that needs it because of funding constraints?"

> Then that's unfortunate.

It's not bloody unfortunate, it's state-sanctioned murder.

The British state is perfectly able to fund an adequate sea rescue service. Fortunately for it, the charity-funded RNLI gives it perfect cover for not bothering.

-A.

[doublelayer]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

You and I have a different idea about what state-sanctioned murder would involve. Someone dying of accidental causes may well be something the government should prevent, but is not murder. The UK could pay for many more sea rescue facilities than they have. Maybe you think that number should be higher. I defer to your experience, as I do not live or pay taxes in the UK and I don't know what facilities exist. That is not my point. My point is that, whatever that number ends up being, even if they allow you to pick the number you think is optimal, there is a valid reason for a charity to decide to provide more than that, or similar facilities put to a different purpose, using voluntary donations.

For example, let's say that I choose to move to the UK and set up the Non-royal I Bought Some Lifeboats Organization. Because you increased the number of UK-controled boats, I find that mine are not that much needed in British waters, so I choose to sail them over to Ireland, France, Spain, and Norway for a while. I can do that, and people in the UK can choose to donate to it, even though it would probably be pretty difficult to convince either the UK government or UK voters to pay for sea rescue in other countries. That is a case where a charity can obtain a good goal through acceptable means where a government probably will not, and in the opinions of many should not, be paying for the activity. Sea rescue is far from the only example of that, and many of the things that charities do are probably not things you think should be public services.

[Cynical Pie]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

'The British state is perfectly able to fund an adequate sea rescue service. Fortunately for it, the charity-funded RNLI gives it perfect cover for not bothering' See also Air Ambulances

[Cav]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

You're another that has no clue of the economic realities of the UK. The UK government, rightly, spent billions supporting salaries during Covid. They are paying bonuses to families during the cost of living surge at the moment. They are also capping the cost of energy to consumers and paying the difference between true cost and capped cost to consumer energy firms. Where is all this extra money you want spent supposed to come from? And don't give me that crap about companies not paying their share. Direct energy producers (i.e. the people pulling gas and oil out of the ground) are making a killing with surging costs but before the UK government started compensating distributors, consumer resellers were dropping like flies. The UK is massively in debt, although that debt is now falling. There isn't a bottomless pit of money from which to keep drawing. And please don't say tax the rich or tax companies. Do you really want to drive away investors? Who will fund these companies?

It's the same idiotic thinking as Red Robbo, of the 1970s, that destroyed the UK car industry. Oh they can pay more and more and more, until they collapsed and the idiots wondered where their jobs went.

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

” Rescue doesn't care.

> what happens if the people needing rescue are attempting to migrate illegally?

Idem.“

Well; when it comes to funding, they should. Not to mention the fact that it’s a tool in the smuggler’s arsenal knowing that if all else fails, we can dump them in the water and they’ll be picked up anyway. Remove this safety net and a part of the smugglers’ value proposition goes away.

[captain veg]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

The IRA used to phone an ambulance just before kneecapping a victim. I'm not aware that this was ever used as an argument for defunding the ambulance service.

-A.

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

What's that got to do with the price of peanuts? I don't see the correlation.

[captain veg]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

Well no, you wouldn't.

-A.

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

And you are clearly unable to explain; you thought you'd just throw some random shit in and hope it went unquestioned.

[doublelayer]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

The comparison would appear to be that canceling or restricting a humanitarian service for a political goal is something they consider immoral. Theoretically, fewer attacks would have been committed by the IRA if ambulances would not come to help the victim, and theoretically, fewer illegal migrants would be sent if they were more likely to die at sea. Both would require allowing someone to be harmed when you have the ability to help them, and neither would necessarily result in the outcome you prefer.

This is why I mentioned the question in the first place. Whatever my personal opinions might be, and they are not relevant so I will not state them here, there are people who oppose sea rescue resources because they can be used to help migrants and those who want to restrict their actions to prevent them from helping migrants. If you can't change everyone's mind on that, and they are successfully reducing or restricting the sea rescue facilities, you can patch the problem you see by providing other resources that are not restricted by political decisions because their funding comes from other sources. Your opinion is probably that the government should be paying for whatever subset of services you prefer to exist, but if you can't convince the government to do it, then an external charity is a method of obtaining the goal anyway. This is true for the subset of charities that do something that a government also does, but there are also charities that do something that a government typically should not be funding.

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

DoubleLayer I think you're right. My point isn't that I feel these services should necessarily be restricted or cancelled; simply that funding, in the broadest context of ANY service, is by its very nature finite AND intended for a specific objective. Allowing those who are not in scope of this objective to take advantage of the service decreases the quality and availability of the service for those for whom it IS intended, which isn't fair as it's their money (directly or indirectly) that paid for it. See also: restricting access to the NHS to legal UK residents.

I don't believe it's practical to ask RNLI boat commanders to deliberately ignore anybody struggling in the water. To do so would be inhuman, not to mention impractical (ask them for ID before picking them up? Throw them back if they can't show UK residency?) HOWEVER - the RNLI should not promote itself as a service to non UK-residents, and (in my view) should make it clear that that is NOT why it exists. It has neither the funding nor the mission to save the world.

That is my point.

[captain veg]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

I'm perfectly able to explain. I rather think that most objective observers would consider that I already did. Your own comprehension skills seem limited, to be honest.

-A.

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

You keep commenting without saying anything. A bit pointless, even for you.

[Lazlo Woodbine]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

The RNLI and Trinity House who run the lighthouses, have always been funded from charity

The same is true for air ambulances.

The Givernment can't be seen to be helping people...

[SCP]

Re: RNLI vs chuggers

What, like some sort of coastguard?

[amajadedcynicaloldfart]

"As part of this journey"

They lost me when I read that. Why is everything a fucking "journey" nowadays?

[cosymart]

Re: "As part of this journey"

Because it's a long way "to reach out".

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: "As part of this journey"

Not to mention "circling back"

[captain veg]

Re: "As part of this journey"

If it's a "journey" then the journeyer need never reach the destination. Probably best that they don't, since the "journey" would then cease to exist.

-A.

[IGotOut]

Don't give money charities you cry...

...well I was a trustee of a small local internet cafe by day and drop in youth club at night.

The only people paid were the full day staff and part time youth workers.

Local anti social behaviour dropped 95% in the first year.

We helped get dozens of people get back into work.

We helped teach many elderly use computers.

We turned a known trouble makers life around so much, he became a professional photographer and a qualified youth worker.

Helped lonely people join social groups.

The list goes on.

Where was this, some inner city shit hole?

No, in an affluent, middle class conservative village.

And before you say "Government should do this", just look at all the services Birmingham are now cutting, the very same things charities support.

You want better services? Then pay for them, but people would rather have a £2 a week tax break.

[captain veg]

Re: Don't give money charities you cry...

> You want better services? Then pay for them

Entirely the point. Don't rely on an ever-dwindling pool of poor mugs to voluntarily hand over money they can't afford. Raise the money from general taxation.

-A.

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: Don't give money charities you cry...

Like those poor mugs who spaffed their donations up the wall so Patrice Cullors could buy herself a new mansion? You're quite A OK supporting that, along with calling those who object to it racists... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And for the record, you don't need to sign your posts. Literally nobody gives a shit whether you're A, B, Z or The Poster Who Used to Call Himself Q.

[captain veg]

Re: Don't give money charities you cry...

> And for the record, you don't need to sign your posts. Literally nobody gives a shit whether you're A, B, Z or The Poster Who Used to Call Himself Q.

Does that annoy you?

-A.

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: Don't give money charities you cry...

Delusions of grandeur always annoy me.

[Cav]

Re: Don't give money charities you cry...

Exactly! Right before the next general election, the Conservatives will bribe the electorate with a tax cut and that electorate will lap it up and be fearful of "tax and spend" Labour while they whine about services being cut and, as this fool argues, not funding everything in sight.

[captain veg]

grandeur

I'm laughing. Thanks.

-A.