Basically the guy has donated an old top that had £1400 in a zipped pocket. He later realised, and wants the money back because he never intended to donate it.
Personally, although I understand Age Concern’s position, I think they should pony up. This can only generate bad will, which may impact their income from donations by more than they gain from keeping this ‘windfall’.
What’s the Doper view?
They should return the money. They suck.
Any man who responds with legal defences when faced with a moral challenge already knows how his position is morally rotten. Nobody likes a stinking lawyer. They’ll easily lose more that those weasely £1400 in bad publicity.
What is Age Concern?
A charity that helps the elderly. They have shops on the high street that sell the donated items (books clothes etc) and use the proceeds. Kind of like Oxfam
First of all, I’d like to offer some friendly and constructive advice. Ananova isn’t the best place to start if you’re looking for news. As I’ll show you, the Anaova article is deliberately edited to make a non-issue into a shock horror headline.
You can get a full version of that story from several sites.
The source you use leaves out information that changes the story on its head.
For instance,
was left out, as was
and most importantly
When you know all the facts, what else was the charity to do? Leave all donations in under a bed for six months, just in case someone changes their mind? Give money to passing strangers who claim to have made mistaken donations?
As you say, the additional facts but the entire affair in a completely different light.
On the contrary, any charity that is not aware of the law and does not try to operate accordingly has no right whatsoever to continue operating.
The trustees of a UK charity cannot just pay money out as they see fit. Giving them the power to make payments that do not unambiguously fulfil that charity’s aims is a potential abuse and so is very tightly regulated. The advice from the Charity Commission (to which Age Concern will be answerable for any money it gives away) is that avoiding bad publicity is usually not a good enough reason.