Hawkers. Charities. Sales People. The Feel in your country.
As many of you know, my fiancee and I (@JessicaKrystal) live in Australia. In our country you can get a permit from the council/management to set up a stand or just walk about trying to sell stuff to passers by. In our area, this has been increasing exponentially lately.
Walking to our local shopping centre yesterday we passed people collecting for Heart Cancer, 20 feet further down the road, Oxfam blocking the top of an escalator. Some other charity group blocking the bridge another 50 feet further down the road.
In the centre itself there is a baby photo group by the door, a college trying to recruit, a group of people selling soap and another group of cancer people and a car raffle.
ALL of these people will try to stand IN FRONT of you and engage in some meaningless conversation to stop you from going anywhere. Normally I'm a patient man and have NO problem donating. However, I've been getting REALLY annoyed by this lately.
Especially since they no longer offer a simple donation, like here's a 20 dollar note, I'll be on my way. It's all about packages and 6 month contracts and credit cards. If they didn't WASTE so much money making glossy hi resolution photo packs and employing millions of people to harass customers maybe they'd get SOME money through to the starving children?
Anyway! That's the end of my rant! How do you deal with them? How does your country take them? What are your laws?
Cheers ladies and gents!
Walking to our local shopping centre yesterday we passed people collecting for Heart Cancer, 20 feet further down the road, Oxfam blocking the top of an escalator. Some other charity group blocking the bridge another 50 feet further down the road.
In the centre itself there is a baby photo group by the door, a college trying to recruit, a group of people selling soap and another group of cancer people and a car raffle.
ALL of these people will try to stand IN FRONT of you and engage in some meaningless conversation to stop you from going anywhere. Normally I'm a patient man and have NO problem donating. However, I've been getting REALLY annoyed by this lately.
Especially since they no longer offer a simple donation, like here's a 20 dollar note, I'll be on my way. It's all about packages and 6 month contracts and credit cards. If they didn't WASTE so much money making glossy hi resolution photo packs and employing millions of people to harass customers maybe they'd get SOME money through to the starving children?
Anyway! That's the end of my rant! How do you deal with them? How does your country take them? What are your laws?
Cheers ladies and gents!
3
Comments
Trains stations suffer from this plague now to do they?! God damn!
We got to about 11 different groups in less then say 600 meters. What's worse is when you go back, they do it AGAIN. >:/ I have no problems with charity and I would happily give them my spare change but I don't like having someone stand between me and what I set out to do. . . I find this highly irritating.
Exactly right, I don't want to fill out paperwork and have them take money from my bank on their own accord. Enough people have there fingers firmly entrenched in my bank account as it is. I'd love to know exactly how much money people donate goes out on "Administration Expenses" these days.
I'm not sure if this is even legal in other countries, it borders on harassment. Especially when they block public access so you can't get passed them in a hurry because there's a crowd of people trying to get passed.
/Rant continues/
Seriously though, what is with the recent boom in this sort of thing? Did I miss a law change somewhere?
It's an annoyance, but only a minor one.
Also works wonders at parties. There's always one or two people who mistake a reserved nature for loneliness.
If you encounter anyone asking for money for a charity who cannot accept a cash donation then you know two things immediately: 1) the charity doesn't trust its own people to get the money where it is supposed to go and 2) they don't really want your money (as I mentioned already).
I would actually like to meet an aggressive hawker so I can tell them "I was going to give money to your charity but because of your aggressive nature now I am not going to, kthx".
In fact so many places now want SO many details. Email addresses dates of birth real names. I really dislike this.
I'm amazed they haven't asked for a pee sample and photos to prove I exist.
So it's common in Canada to?
Nobody who lives here makes eye contact with anyone else and everything is a scam by default. This is either because we were raised here and have always known this or moved here and got burned before. It makes a lot of people view us as jerks, but it's the law of the concrete jungle.
Not that this ever stops many thousands of people from asking for money, personal info, signatures, etc., for one stated reason or another, on a daily basis.
After all, the tourists love that stuff.
To me, New York sounds like a very unpleasant place to live to me. :P That said, it's a small price to pay to not have to be cornered outside Dick Smiths and guilted into donating money for 6 months so the Pandas have some bamboo to eat by a fat man who won't let you get a word in edge ways.
Ahaha! If Yoshimo and Haer'dalis had a child. . . it would be @jackjack
I kind of imagine @bengoshi as Yoshimo meets Keldorn with a spice of Jan. . .
What's mother Russia's take on hawkers? Can you Step right up? Or would that just land you in jail?
Also on a side note. . .
If you have short days and long nights then you must be up at fairly high latitudes. . . ? Would that not affect people being out an about a lot?
There is definitely a foolproof method to get them to leave you alone, pioneered by a friend of mine. A group of us went on holiday to a major European city toward the end of our University course. We were out until about 3am every night, and walking home through a tourist district got constantly approached by Drug Dealers, Prostitutes, Pickpockets, Muggers, just about anyone who might try and get money from drunk people. One of my mates is small, very loud, and utterly without a sense of shame. When they started walking toward him he kept walking, made fixed eye contact, held out his right hand (palm toward them in a "Stop" gesture), and said "NO!" very loudly.
This method will make you look completely crazy but I guarantee no-one will bother you for anything.
*Edit* Also, @CaloNord someone collecting for a Heart Cancer charity? Seriously? That is vanishingly rare, and most of them are benign anyway. I worked in cardiology for six months at a major hospital and didn't see one.
Well, it depends on who they bother, of course, but typically it would not result in violence. The solicitor would absolutely get yelled at in the most confrontational way possible, if the problem persisted to the point you described, and failing that, the surrounding pedestrians would gang up on them. But again, actual physical violence is almost impossibly rare, in that situation.
Most commonly, we simply ignore it.
I know right? They collect for all manner of crap these days. But I suspect you guys are right, they are just after mailing information.
@jackjack so it's not as bad as people say? I hear NY can be a mean place to live.
Eventually we made a break for it, and literally RAN for a break in their hippie-hawker wall thing, the next thing we knew, three of them fell behind us and the two on either side started walking ahead diagonally.
We were RUNNING, and they seriously pulled off a freaking pincer maneuver trying to catch us.
I have taken to walking the streets shouting "I'M UNDERAGE. I CAN'T DONATE. LEAVE ME ALONE."
My mildly worded review of the local shopping centre. I'm quite proud of this one.
Charity a-hole: "Have you heard about...."
JessicaKrystal: "Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior?"
This could work. No-one likes talking to Jehova's Witnesses. They're too polite. You might need to start wearing suits and travelling in pairs at all times. (Nothing against Jehova's Witnesses, mind. They seem harmless enough.)
*Edit* I fail at typing.
Many times I get asked for money from regular looking people, and they always use the same irritating lines... One guy said I could punch him as hard as I wanted if I payed him £10... in the middle of a crowded market.
When I was younger and lived in Leeds I got mugged alot, which is what most these beggars would do if they had a spine.
Also get the door knockers... always about religion or "raffle tickets."
Years ago when I was in Perth some 13 year old emo kid attempted to threaten money out of me. It was really really hard not to laugh at him. England got a bit more of a serious problem?
Oh yea. We get tons of those. Joho's and raffle tickets are really popular. Also had RSPCA among others.