Air ambulance issues charity bag warning

An air ambulance service has issued advice over charity bags posted through letter boxes after it stopped its own scheme.

Some households across the north east of England recently received bags emblazoned with calls to donate items to benefit air ambulance services that may not operate in the region.

The Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS), which responds to thousands of incidents a year in the area, stopped distributing bags more than a year ago.

A spokeswoman said: "We think it is important that people can make an informed decision before they make a donation, especially when it could involve donations going to a charity outside of the area which we cover."

She added: "There are a lot of legitimate charities posting bags through doors and it is not up to us tell the public who to support, that is a matter for them.

"We'd just like to make it clear that we are the only air ambulance service to be based both in the north east and Cumbria."

A recent post issued to the charity's social media followers was intended to act as a reminder that "while some bags may look similar to what we previously distributed, they do not belong to the GNAAS", she said.

To help reduce its environmental footprint, the charity stopped dropping off bags last May and only picks up arranged collections.

While there was no suggestion that the bags posted through doors across the north east recently were linked to scammers, warnings about bogus charity collectors have been sounded by prominent charities, including the NSPCC, for several years.

As far back as 2011, charity bag fraud reportedly deprived organisations of up to £50m of income a year.

A spokesman for the Fundraising Regulator said people should contact charities if they received bags they did not believe to be legitimate.

Every bag is required to display the following:

• A solicitation statement (as required by the 1992 Act explaining how the fundraising will benefit the charity)
• The charity's name and registration number
• The commercial participator's name, registration number and place of registration
• The proportion of the donation which will go to the charity
• The Fundraising Badge

The spokesman said the distribution of misleading and fake charity bags was fraud and should be reported to police or Action Fraud.

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