Update! (2009-10-28) 3 years later and the Do Not Delay website has been updated. Thanks to this comment for pointing it out. Their About the Project page gives a detailed account of what they do in Lithuania:
Six years ago, the Lithuanian rate of deaths caused by breast cancer was the highest in Europe.
DO NOT DELAY, a breast cancer awareness program, was initiated by Agnė Zuokienė in 2003. Today, the number of deaths is significantly lower.
The Do Not Delay team includes professional doctors – specialists of their field who face breast cancer cases on a daily basis.
The Pink Bus travels to the most remote locations in Lithuania to deliver the message to all women – “Take care of your health, pay more attention to yourselves for your own sake and for the sake of those who love you!”
It would appear from this that “Do Not Delay” are in fact a charity in Lithuania. They’re not registered as one in Ireland or the UK however. This report by the Fermanagh Herald covers some of the same concerns I have and I will repeat my advice below. You’re better off handing your clothes in to a local second hand shop. At least then you’ll be certain the proceeds from the sale of those items will go to registered charities in your locality.
The original post continues below:
It’s not unusual for junk mail to be delivered to my door. Thankfully there’s a lot less of it than the electronic equivalent. Over the summer a number of flyers made their way to my doorstep, supposedly from charities looking for old clothes to sell to raise funds. Unfortunately only one of those was from an actual charity and they collected the clothes at a local carpark.
The latest one is from donotdelay.org. I was going to let it pass but my neighbour had a bag out for collection this morning which prompted me to grab the laptop and show them this page on letterbox spam. That page points out that donotdelay.org redirects to nedelsk.lt, which asks for donations to be sent to this bank account in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Azzara VšĮ
Enterprise code 124013046
Account no. LT267044060001204079
SEB Vilniaus Bankas
Bank code 70440
There’s a phone number too, 0044-28-3084-9971, which is a UK number and not exactly encouraging for an Irish person.
How do you spot the fake charity flyers?
- It will have a contact number but it’s more than likely a mobile number. In Ireland, that’s an 085, 086, 087 number. A landline number means that they at least have a base or premises in the country.
- The flyer should have a registered charity number. A registered business number is not the same.
- Ring your local authority and ask if the “charity” is licensed to make door-to-door collections.
- Use the Google search engine to find out about them. Use any registration numbers you find, an identifying website address, even search for text from the flyer. Any charity with the resources to organise a door-to-door clothes collection will have at least some presence on the Internet.
If you do have old clothes to give away, pop them into a bag and bring them into one of the charity shops in your local town or city. They’re always looking for quality saleable items. Here’s a list of Irish charities if you want to donate money. Some well known and reputable charities include Trocaire (they even have an rss feed!), Bothair and Simon Community.
If you live in the UK, this page has some useful information including how to report a fake charity.
“Do Not Delay” collect money for breast cancer research but you would be better off making a donation to The Irish Cancer Society who will put your donation to good use.
I’ll update this post from time to time with thumbnails and summaries of flyers that hit my door. Check back often!
Just as I was wondering when donotdelay would collect their clothes I spotted an old blue van parked outside. It’s a Dublin reg vehicle and quite old, given that it’s a van and presumably used for business. The reg is “97 D 45516”. I spotted a man in denims walking down the road. He ducked into a house at a corner for a moment then walked up a hill out of sight. I waited a few minutes and he returned with a woman. Both got into the van, drove down to the end of the cul-de-sac and about 5 minutes later drove past again. On closer examination of the photos below I recognised the top of the heart shaped flyer they had in their hands. One was delivered here a few weeks back. I might have it arond here somewhere.
Update: Another blogger received the same flyer. Hopefully someone will search online for “Clothing Collection For Breast Cancer Prevention Programm”.
2006-11-21 – a new leaflet was dropped in the door a few minutes ago. It has an Irish mobile number, 0876815133, and reg. no. 382101. No sign of a charity number.
Not every family in developing countries can afford to buy new, often expensive clothes, footwear and household things.
If you search for their reg no. the first link is a pdf file (view as HTML) from Dublin City Council. Councillor Naoise O’Muiri asked, in a question to the City Manager, if he can
confirm that the following agencies currently engaged in collections in the City Area have all applied for and received Permits: …
“Unwanted Clothing Collection”, no Reg No given, 087 0552513
He replied:
The Collectors referred to by the Councillor do not have a waste collection permit from Dublin City Council.
Chances are they’re collecting ilegally in Cork too.
2006-11-29 – “Thank you for help” – another flyer appeared this morning before 8am, they’re out early! Identifying text includes the above badly constructed sentence and: “we urgently need clothing that you and your family may never wear again” and “Company Reg. Nr. 5655565A”, “Phone: +353851670878” – another mobile number. No landline, address or charity number.
2006-12-05 – “We support Orphanages.” just fell in the door. Here are their details: Reg. no. 9027839, phone 085-1337528. That’s a mobile phone number.
Update! I have set up a new site, Clothingcollection.org where I post details about all the fake charity leaflets I get. I’m sure you’ll recognise a few of them!
Why everyone is so angry, if they want do their business – let them do it, you get a free nice bag every week. Whats the problem…?
Instead of wasting your time here chatting and if you have nothing to do – you could join your local charities and help homeless people, or people with drugs problems. There are so many other positive things you could do to benefit local community… =(
Goodluck
@Tom – the problem, in case you haven’t actually been reading the comments, is they’re not just collecting clothes. In some cases, they are stealing whatever’s loose.
It is also possible that they are using these leaflets as a way to find houses where the residents are absent for long periods. I have not seen any news of burglaries yet related to this, but it’s a thought…
There is also no proof so far that these items of clothing are going where they claim they’re going – they could be going straight up on a rack in some operator’s shop to be sold at top-dollar.
And the numbers (registration, phone, etc) are so far mostly fake. Not one valid registration number. This says to me that these guys are very very aware that what they’re doing is illegal, and they don’t want to be caught doing it.
If you’re totally okay with all that, I would guess either you don’t mind your house being used in a nationwide scam, or you’re in on it.
This is a topic close to my heart as my husband is a ‘real’ bag collector for two ‘real’ big named Uk charities. These are two of the most well known charities that have shops in nearly every town in the UK.
He has been a registered collector for many years, who does this as a job, and he picks up and delivers bags which go directly to the charity shop concerned where the items are sold in the shop.
Obviously this huge scam being carried out is causing alot of problems to existing charity shops such as these as the donations are down drasticaly. Collectors such as my husband of course are finding it hard too as their wages are calculated on the number of bags they collect.
If you wish to donate, and also wipe these scammers out, then the best thing to do is (a) as others have said, take your donations directly to your local well known charity shop.
Or (b) just put your donated clothes in an authentic registered charity bag which you know has a shop in your area, to be collected by an autentic collector.
From our experience, unless the donations are going straight to a shop, then these bags are most likely to be some sort of money making scam.
High Street Charity shops are finding it very tough at the moment, so please support them and not your local second hand clothing businessman.
Keep getting these through my letterbox in Tallaght the latest one is “Irish Cristianity Programme for Africa” rang both numbers and they do not exist there is no reg charity number either…I am sick of it every day!! The guy who delivered it through the letterbox looked dodgy as too!!
Just got one in the door in balbriggan from Lucky Day Ltd – as in their lucky day eh. A a bit concerned as the driver seems to be only stopping at our house and putting in our letterbox, also they dont post them just leave them sticking out of the mail box. He then goes back to his blue van Reg 00MH not sure the rest and makes a note of something. We are a little bit worried at this stage because its been happening every 2/3 days only at our house on the street he then gets in the van takes a note and drives out of the estate !!!! whats going on – we have never left anything out, are new to the area and the only house with small children – but how do they know that, it makes me feel a little creeped out to be honest
just got the “Irish Christianity Programme for Africa” one here in Lucan. Almost believed it for a sec as they’re obviously trying a new angle with the church theme (i’ve just returned after a year abroad) but then of course you read down and there’s no VAT number…just phone nrs. If long term residents in this country dont realise these are total scams by now, they must be plain stupid. How many reports have been published in the papers and broadcast on TV/radio at this stage?
Just had these guys in the Athlone Roscommon area.
Their flyer still has the same phone numbers on it.
We notified the Gardai who called back within 30 mins to say they had stopped and searched the van and questioned the driver and helper. It seems that they were already known to the Gardai. Not much that the Gardai can do when they are delivering stickers but all reports do help the Gardai to collate information on them, especially in rural areas. So, do what we did and notify all visits by these people to your local Gardai.
Blackrock,Co. Dublin Just been hit by Irish Christianity Programme. Same as Eoin. No reply to numbers. 👿
I know a fellow who runs this type of scam he is from Lithuania, what he does is he gets one of his workers to draw several sticker designs, then he orders a shit loads of sticker each month. They are rarely the same they write whatever catch lines on them.
Anyway so this guy has like 12 to 18 old vans, all ensured and taxed, his so called charity business is also registered. He employs his so called mates and his mates offer their mates these positions. For each 1000 stickers one delivers he/she gets payed from 40-60 euros. Cash in hand.
So the driver and the doorman work together, what ever amount of clothes they get each day gets weighted in. The owner pays from 550-700 euros a tonne, to the people that work for him. Then he exports it to the Polish/Lithuanian region for approx 1200-1500 euros TAX free. The clothes get sorted and then sold at markets and second hand clothes stores for further profit.
This has gotten so bad lately that these people go after one another beating the shit outch other for these clothing bags. They are becoming territorial like animals do.
Anyway just a little inside on this if anyone is wondering.
keep it up, how do you know all this? we are going to be researching this type of organisation and would appreciate any more such reliable info. please feel free to email me directly at malaysianqueen91 at yahoo dot com.
thanks in advance!
Maria
Maria this info comes from the people I got to know trough my partner, she used to work for this fellow two years back but not anymore because of the danger this has put her in working early in the morning in the dark. There are stories of leaflet workers getting attacked beaten, belongings taking away from them and even their vans set on fire. Yep too crazy of a job if you ask me, for little to no profit.
I can see that you are interested in this whole thing but I am afraid I can not go any further than this. If this is important to you, get someone to follow one of these vans around. Eventually they will have to get back to their base to weigh in their collected bags.
By the way just an add thought, I know that this whole scam is not a right thing to do, but if you look at it from a different prospective good things come out of it too (if not considering the money that these people make for them selfs off, the good of the people who care to support all these charity programs).
For example the poor over seas now get an opportunity to purchase these secondhand clothes which they can now afford. This is not an excuse I know but hey me I’m just writing down what I know.
devloping world clothing
unit 5, unit 22,
duleek business park,
duleek, co. meath
director: Donatas Mikalauskas, Tamney, gormanstown, Co.meath
telephone: 087 1214546 (ring him)
this man has a Current Waste Collection Permit,also operating in cork
Hi, found this website when searching a company registration no 2184994a, leaftlet entitiled unwanted clothing collection. About twenty black bags filled with various items including household rubbish, clothes, ornaments, broken toys and people’s personal items/documents where dumped on our land week ending the 21/08/10. Tracked the person’s whoose documents they were down and she worked for Lisburn District Concil coincidently.
the third flyer wasn’t lying as far as i know. i’m from lithuania and i know that many people live from these clothes here. we buy clothes from the wholesellers who collect them from house to house and then sell them to people in lithuania by kilos. then people here, who usually don’t have another job sell them in markets to others, who couldn’t usually afford new clothing. it’s true, that those people (actually their bosses) who collect bags from door to door make most of the profit, because they are mostly fake charities,they don’t donate much or any, but these clothes really help people here in lithuania. i myself sell these clothes in the markets. my parents buy them from the whole sellers, then my mum sorts them out, some of them are not good enough to be sold, so we give them away to other people who need clothing or who can make other use of them. i have friend who is expecting her second baby now and nor her or her husband have jobs and social support is really little, so i give her bags of clothes for free, and i’m happy i can help, because we have many clothes that we don’t sell. the better clothes my mum washes, sews and irons and then sells. i get the middle quality clothes and also sell them but for lower prices, so many people here benefit from these clothes. the problem is that whole sellers don’t donate much to charities they say they support, that’s why they drive expensive cars and stuff. as the saying goes, money attract and when you get your hands on many off them, you don’t really want to donate much of it. so it’s for you to decide what to do with your clothes 🙂
I have received quite a few of these so-called charity leaflets asking for clothes, furniture, even jewellery. Checked out 2 and found they are fakes. Second-life is one, the other one came up as an electrical firm in Hong Kong! Take your things to a charity shop in your area.
I am surprised though at the HQ’s of many charities. They have enormous quality buildings in quite expensive areas??? What percentage actually goes to help people? How can they afford to run these premises?
@dazsim How to spot a fake charity http://ocaoimh.ie/do-not-delay-how-to-spot-a-fake-charity-flyer/
Hi there
there are a lot of companies in countries like Hungary, Romania, Slovenia that sell clothes donated in UK to charities like cancer research, heart foundation etc. And they are proud to say their merchandise is coming from door to door donations or it’s been directly donated to the charity shops and is top quality! How can we stop it?! I mean they are registered as legal businesses in other EU countries…And what we decide to donate to a specific charity is sold by this chaps with £1-£2 /kilo…
UKRAINIAN APPEAL (C-Y Reg No.391493 (R.o.I) SC 309637. second-life@mail.org.â€Help us to provide aid and affordable clothing for a sustainable futureâ€) I GOT THIS LEAFLET THROUGH THE POST TODAY AND GUESS WHAT IVE FILLED THE BAG FULL OF RUBBISH AND DOGS SHITE I.LL GIVE THEM A BIT OF THERE OWN MEDICINE BACK im in dublin
Only problem is they will throw your bag of rubbish into your neighbours wall!
I am so sick of these bags been put through my door. I live up the north of Ireland. first time i did give a large bag of clothing to these people not realising myself, i really could kick myself now for doing it. Just got a new one through the door today claiming to be ‘support to children’ support my @ss. Good job im doing a red out they can get all my old mouldy clothes from the attic, that will fix them 😆 😆
I live in Dunfermline Scotland and have just had a sticker for Ukranian Appeal second Life C-Y reg . No 391493 (R.o.I) SC 309637 wanting me to a fill a bag of clothing, I think they are now operating in Scotland. I never give anything that is collected, I usually put them into the Salvation Army or a local charity shop that way I know I am not lining some crooks pocket.
I note that you have verified the Dochus Nasamu orphanage collection. I just wanted to confirm that I have donated to them many times over the past few years and I also rang and spoke to a very nice lady once when I wanted to confirm a collection time. A number of households in our village donate and I have been told that the parish priest often makes an announcement at church when they are due to visit.
It really is quite sickening to see people try to make money by masqeurading as a charity. Thank you for taking the time to provide info on these lowlifes.
I am in dublin ireland and i reseved a flyer for clothes collection today, I rang the gards who informed me that there is a loophole in the law where if the people who are responsible for this just donate 1cent to charity thay can not be tuched.The government need to do something about this loophole if it was them who were losing money thay would act very fast…
scam collections for the homeless happening in stillorgan outside stillorgan shopping centre do not donate
That telephone number although a U.K. Prefix is infact rerouted to Lithuania and will cost you money at premium rate as the main number after the 0044 isnt actually a UK based telephone number .
I’ve had one of these envelopes through my door today and noticed the Lithuanian Registration they also have a different website address http://www.icollectclothes.co.uk
Good luck in your fight against cancer in Ireland I lost both of my parents to cancer in 2015, I hate scammers if it was up to me I’d throw them all in jail for life !!!!!!!