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Soho is plagued by the charity beggers every single day. They stand on Broadwick Street and Wardour Street with their clipboards and try to get you to sign up to whichever cause they are fronting.

Like everyone I know, I walk right past them, and then feel guilty 10 feet down the street.

But it looks like I shouldn’t. Feel guilty, that is.

I caught the end of a report on Radio 4 about the whole industry that has grown up around these charity beggers, and was surprised to hear that they don’t even work for the charities themselves. They work for agencies hired by the charities, and the fees they charge can be as much as 90% of all that you give in the first year of donations after signing on the dotted line.

I shall now walk past them with my head held high and then, when the guilt kicks in, click here to remind myself why I did the right thing.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 19th, 2003 at 10:30 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.