A frugal life is an easy life!

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

As of June 2011, it has now been confirmed that Little treasures children's trust have secured a license with our local council for carrying out doorstep collections.
Frugal ways welcomes this, as it was the whole purpose of the original post.

There are of course, other companies/charities making collections on our doorsteps, that are not legitimate and have no license to do so.
It is essential that our local councils, even in times of cutbacks, operate to protect the people who elect them. The licensing issue is a hotbed for all concerned, are the profits made per tonne excessive? Is the charity genuine?
These are questions that are asked prior to council's giving licenses out. It is therefore the local council's responsibility to answer to us and make sure that the proper checks are in place, to verify those who post bags and ask for our donations are who they say they are.

I will continue to believe that those businesses collecting on behalf of charities should not take any profit whatsoever from the money made from the collection.

A huge thankyou to all the site visitors who took the time to post regarding this issue. I hope at the very least we were able to make people aware of what was going on at the time.

Little treasures children's trust (charity no: 1119024) are having a clothing collection to raise funds, by a company called East London Textiles Ltd (ELT).

BE WARNED - IT IS EITHER AN UNLICENSED SCAM OR INVOLVES THE THEFT OF CHARITY BAGS!

ELT's representative posted a collection bag through my door yesterday, and everyone elses letterbox on our street, completely ignoring the "No cold callers/leaflets/flyers" notices in all our windows.
I immediately ran out and threw the bag back at her, into the street, questioning wether or not she could read!
I just got a dirty look for my trouble, after I went back inside, the representative picked up the bag and threw it into my garden and walked off.

I phoned the licensing officer at my local council, to see if they have a license to do household collections - (you can search your own council licenses at the lalpac website here) - both ELT and the little treasures childrens trust, do not have a license for household collections in my area.

I spent this morning double checking that they didn't have a "National license" with the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) - Once again, they are not licensed nationally.
All licenses are given out by local councils I was informed.
I was advised to report this to the Charities Commission who told me unless they get a large volume of complaints about them then they do not normally investigate!
However, if I was to visit their website and put the complaint in writing, it would be filed along with other complaints about their practice.

I then rang little treasures children's trust up, directly and spoke to a lady in their offices.
She told me she was disturbed by ELT collecting in their name in areas of England where they did not have a license - which is most of the country - and would be contacting them urgently to sort the matter out. The lady said she would ring me back with information about what had gone on and what would be done about it - this was about 6 hours ago and still no callback!

I grabbed some dinner, then phoned my local council's licensing officer to let him know what was going on, as he requested.
It cannot have been more than an hour from when I spoke to the lady at the little treasures childrens trust.
The licensing officer informed me that out of the blue, someone from East london textiles ltd had contacted his office, he was about to ring him to find out what was going on.
The licensing officer rang me back 30 minutes later, telling me, "a bloke calling himself Ivan admitted that ELT didn't have a license for our area."
He continued, "He told me that east london textiles ltd have had thousands of their collection bags stolen and they were being posted through people's letterboxes all over the country, but he did not know who had stolen them!" - conveniently, this "theft" hasn't been reported to the police either!

"There will be no collections made in our area tomorrow, as stated on the bags posted through letterboxes" - which was a token statement at best, according to our licensing officer.
As three people have informed me today, often they find that the people making vast amounts of profit from these clothing collections are also involved in setting up charities they claim to represent. It will be a case of trying to spot them collecting tomorrow, and reporting it to the licensing officer, so that the local council can bring a case against ELT for household collecting without a license (as they have now admitted).

I rang the little treasures childrens charity back, armed with this information, to find that the lady I spoke with this morning (who didn't call me back), had been "called away to an emergency meeting" but I could leave a message if I wanted to.
The lady phoned back - "I spoke with the director of the company and passed your details on, he will speak with the delivery team."
When I replied that a man called Ivan, from ELT had contacted our licensing officer, stating that no collection would take place and that the bags will have been stolen, I was told "There is a turf war going on in the north of England, we had 3000 of our bags turn up in someone's house not connected with anything!"

I have reported the case to trading standards officers in my county, if they get their act together, in our area tomorrow they will catch ELT in the act of household collecting without a license, or at the very least, catch whoever stole their bags.
What are the odds of that?

UPDATE:

It would appear that trading standards cannot be bothered to catch illegal, unlicensed scams in our area.
Gave them all the information via consumer direct yesterday, they haven't even bothered to phone back! (Remind me again why we pay so much in tax to fund them? What exactly is their job?)

I spoke also, with a community officer regarding what these people were doing - it was a bit vague about posting through letterboxes and household collections, despite pointing out that if I personally trade house to house without a license, I would be in front of a judge, yet these people are allowed to get away with it.
I was told it was "a civil matter" and as such down to the local council to bring a civil case against them.
After further reading up on it (I'm sad like that) it appears it is indeed a criminal offence to do house to house collections, in a licensing area, without a license. This was confirmed this morning by the licensing officer himself, in person.

At 11.40am today, a van pulled down our street, with "Little treasures children's trust" plastered on the side of it!
I phoned the van reg in to the licensing officer (he told me he would be out on the road today to try and catch them at it - which he was) then I rang the police and told them that the licensing officer was out looking for this van as they were committing an offence.
The officer told me they were out on patrol and the local bobbies would stop it if they came across it.
Then a knock at the door, it was the licensing officer himself, out trying to catch them at it, confirmed details and reg of van, off he went.
Then a phone call from the police, to let me know they stopped the van and warned the driver about posting sacks through letterboxes (why?) but that posting things was a civil matter to be taken up with the council (if it's not licensed then it's a criminal matter!) they then let the van go.

I repeated to the officer on the phone, that the council's licensing officer was trying to catch them and that he confirmed that it is a criminal offence to have a household collection without a license. The officer informed me of where they had stopped the van then ended the call so she could notify officers to stop the van again and call the licensing officer (Why don't these people work together?)

If there is anymore information I will post it.. just goes to show how easy it is for people to be misled and deceived for money!
What was it that little treasures childrens charity told me yesterday... ah yes there was a turf war going on and their bags have been stolen by other doorstep collectors!
Maybe I'll ring them and ask, exactly why one of their own vans is doing collections around my area today then.

UPDATE - As of September 2010, It has been brought to my attention, the little treasures children's trust charity are seeking to have this website removed (at least whilst their claims are investigated) by employing a solicitor to recover my personal information for the purposes of a legal action that this post is "defamatory" towards them.

Little treasures children's trust have not contacted me via this website, rang my phone number that I gave to them when reporting what their collection agent or van collection did, nor have they contacted me by mail at my home address which they have had from the outset as they said they would give this to east london textiles directors, so they could "stop this kind of thing happening again."

I can only guess, but it appears from their solicitor's letter, they would rather have the website and the information on it, removed from public view altogether, or at the very least, cause enough panic for a domain registrar to make this website "unusable."

You can view the full legal post here

UPDATE2:

It would appear that more areas are being targeted in this scam. Not my view, it is the view of Warrington trading standards:

 http://www.tswarrington.co.uk/pdf/ican/188littletreasureschildrenstrust.pdf

 Related posts:

Little treasures children's trust threaten Frugal ways with court action

Charity commission respond to our little treasures children's trust complaint