Clothing scam companies

Clothing scam companies are companies or gangs that purport to be collecting second-hand clothes for charities or to be working for charitable causes, when they are in fact working for themselves, selling the clothes overseas and giving little if anything to charitable causes.[1] They are a particular problem in the United Kingdom, where they rely on people's awareness of proper charities established practise of collecting used clothes for good causes. These companies cause major problems for established charities in terms of lost donations and making the public distrustful of all clothes collectors.

A leaflet from a commercial collecting company

Advertising

A popular tactic of clothing scam companies is to leaflet a particular area and then move on before people become aware that the company is a clothing scam company. These leaflets will often illegally claim that they are either charities or working for established charities. Often they will state in small print that they are a commercial company, but will prominently place wording that implies they are, often quoting very vague charitable aims such as 'third world collection' etc.

These companies are very difficult to prosecute as frequently they are not in fact companies at all, quoting fictitious company names or someone else's company name, when in fact they are just a gang of people getting together to resell used-clothes. Many clothing scam companies use casual labour to deliver the leaflets and collect bags of clothing. They are not officially employed by the clothing scam company, which doesn't keep a record of the people they use that can be checked.

A 2016 investigation by the Sunday Post found that only a small amount, if any, of the value of the clothes donated was given to charity, and discovered evidence of links to organised crime networks.[1]

References
  1. Blackstock, Gordon; White, Nic (7 February 2016). "The great charity bag rip-off: How shady firms are cashing in on your clothes donations". Sunday Post. Retrieved 25 November 2019.
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