How do you find out if a charity is fake?

doctor evil

Just had one fella at the door for "Victory Outreach Ireland".

I`ve googled it and it seems a bit cultish?, regret giving him the fiver as I`m not too certain if it is a genuine charity. He showed me the charity no. I didn`t take it down so I have nothing to compare it to. He also gave me a card with no website on it but it has telephone numbers, fax and email hot mail account.

Real or not?, in future I`ll adopt a policy of only giving money to charities I`m familiar with.

Out of curiosity are random people allowed to look at the accounts of charities?.

MooseJam

not random people, only yore ma

connundrum

Grab the 'charity worker' in a choke hold and refuse to let him/her go until he/she gives an answer which you are happy with. I find that works the best.

Why not just give to a charity which you know is real i.e. Bernardos, Gaol, Red Cross etc.

doctor evil

He arrived at the doorstep and caught me off guard. Guilt tripped.

Zaph

For anything I've never heard of before I usually just tell those people that I already have standing orders set up for a couple of other charities. Generally seems to do the trick.

January

They're not a charity, they're a church and they "fundraise" to keep themselves running. As far as I know they are registered but I could find out the charity number if you want me to, I know people from there...

doctor evil

Are they genuine at all or just bible shoving.

January

They pride themselves on their rehab homes for men and women, drug addiction and alcohol addiction mostly. They claim God can save them and cure them of their addiction. It's worked for some of the people I know and others have failed on the program.

They have youth nights and they evangilize also. I used to attend the church but I've stopped going... I just didn't agree with some of their views, most of my friends are gay and they believe that it's wrong to be gay.

One of their members frequents boards as far as I know, I've seen him posting in the gaming forums a lot...

Degsy

adrieanne__x wrote:

They pride themselves on their rehab homes for men and women, drug addiction and alcohol addiction mostly. They claim God can save them and cure them of their addiction. It's worked for some of the people I know and others have failed on the program.

They have youth nights and they evangilize also. I used to attend the church but I've stopped going... I just didn't agree with some of their views, most of my friends are gay and they believe that it's wrong to be gay.

One of their members frequents boards as far as I know, I've seen him posting in the gaming forums a lot...

Outage!

January

Degsy wrote:

Outage!

Huh??

Caliden

adrieanne__x wrote:

They pride themselves on their rehab homes for men and women, drug addiction and alcohol addiction mostly. They claim God can save them and cure them of their addiction. It's worked for some of the people I know and others have failed on the program.

They have youth nights and they evangilize also. I used to attend the church but I've stopped going... I just didn't agree with some of their views, most of my friends are gay and they believe that it's wrong to be gay.

One of their members frequents boards as far as I know, I've seen him posting in the gaming forums a lot...

What's the world coming to...

insafehands

adrieanne__x wrote:

most of my friends are gay

Really?

admiralofthefleet

do you not ring the department of finance or environment and check the charity's registered number? something like that anyway. there was a clip on the real hustle last night about bogus charities collecting clothes then selling them as 'vintage clothing', did anyone see it?

Lola123

All registered charities are listed on the REvenue website.
If they're not registed with the revenue, and they are claiming to be an irish charity...then they're telling porkies!

January

Yeah, most of them are gay/lesbian/bi... what's that got to do with this thread?

I've looked through revenue.ie and can't seem to find the list, I found the list of tax exempt charities, but they aren't on it.