Email asking for donations

I’ve received an email from Henrietta, a language therapist from Birmingham City University asking from raffle prize donations. Is this legit? Anyone else get one?

"Charity raffle donation

Message from item page: http://folksy.com/items/6696982-Fingerless-Gloves-Dark-Pink
Hi, your items are absolutely beautiful!
I’m a student speech and language therapist at Birmingham City University and I am organising a charity ball in aid of Giving Voice. Giving voice is the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists’ UK wide campaign designed to ‘give voice’ to people with speech, language and communication needs. We are also raising money for Birmingham Children’s Hospital and BUDS - Better understanding of Dementia in Sandwell by having a raffle.
I was wondering if you would be willing to donate a prize for our raffle to help us raise more money. The raffle will be for students and lecturers.
we would really appreciate a prize however big or small you are able to give us. we are happy to advertise for you.
thanks in advance
Henrietta"

Personally I wouldn’t Claire @HookandLoop

I just googled Giving Voice and got some links. But when you click on them it’s just a white page. It’s really easy to set up a website and I would’ve expected a hoaxer to put in a bit more effort than that! :grin:

1 Like

I would ignore it. If you reply they have you email address and no doubt it’ll end up on every scammers list and you’ll get lots more begging letter with sob stories attached.

Are you near the university?

You could pop in and see if this is legit but doesn’t mean you have to donate.

They don’t give you their charity registration number.

Those who are real would give their number and they’d not be targeting small sole businesses like us but would be contacting local larger businesses.

Also this is not what the contact designer button is for it’s considered unwanted ie spam. Forward it to Admin.

2 Likes

I have one too! I don’t think this is a real event and they are hoping we will send them things for nothing!

2 Likes

Ok, maybe I can be a bit too cynical sometimes!

I just found this on the Royal college of speech & language website:
https://www.rcslt.org/giving_voice

But I still wouldn’t donate or contact.

1 Like

Thank you all, I certainly won’t be sending them anything. If I wanted to give a prize to charity I certainly wouldn’t do it through an email. I try to support local charities only and I live in Cheshire, so not near Birmingham University at all!
You really can’t be too careful can you!
Claire

I would ask them to send any request on headed paper to your email or business address. You could also ask for details, charity number etc. It’s what we as a PTA do for my son’s school to get charity donations from local businesses (although we don’t approach self-employed handmade etc, but restaurants for example).

You can always reply saying you already support a chosen charity, or if you’re interested you could contact the University itself. Don’t feel under any pressure to do anything though if you don’t want to.

2 Likes

Even so, @HartAndCraft, I think it’s a bit cheeky asking anyone via the internet for donations. Surely they should be looking a little more locally?

I have already reported this to admin. If they are genuine, then they should be approaching people in a different way. Seems a bit odd to me.

1 Like

I would not suggest you do this as then they have your email address read my previous post.

Replying is the worse thing you can do.

3 Likes

I received the same email too! x

I got this message too & wondered if a thread would come up! What made me a bit suspicious (above a usual wariness) was that the product they liked was one I had just relisted. That usually feels like a scattergun approach. And yes, when asking for donations you go to larger, local, companies not random individual makers online. Mandie

1 Like

Not everyone is a scammer though. First step is to contact through the official channels like the University and then say you would like a formal request made in writing on headed paper with charity number etc once verified. This is why I suggested to contact the University itself. If it is a scam then I’m sure they’ll want to know.

I should’ve been a bit clearer in my original post which way round to do it.

Ahh right I thought you meant to email them back. Doh!

Though they shouldn’t be contacting us anyway it’s spam ie unsolicited email as that contact button if for potential customers to ask any questions they might have concerning the listing. It’s not there to panhandle / beg for donations.

It’s my fault I wasn’t clear, and that’s very true Eileen, they shouldn’t be contacting us via our shops.