Charity bags - who are these people?

[giggirl]

I've just filled a charity bag and put it out for collection tomorrow. It was only then that I bothered to look at the charity name. It's called "The Drops of Help Ltd". Tag line says "the drop of help in your hands will support the poor families, orphans and asylums". Never heard of them so I did a search at the Charity Commission (http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/) and that came up blank. So who are they? Anyone know?

[Sue]

You could try looking at this thread:

Drops of Help

[giggirl]

Oh, oops. I haven't been on the forum much recently. See what happens when you take your eye of the ball. I've learned my lesson now though "watch the forum" is my new mantra.

Anyway - I'm not leaving my bag of goodies out for these horrible people. Something didn't look right so I'm glad I checked.

[ianr]

The latest one through the door, collecting this Friday "in support of the STOP INDIFFERENCE project of the Lithuanian Orphan Fellowship", says they're a company called A.N.Y.A. Ltd.

A quick check at Companies House shows that the company was dissolved in March 2010, and had not filed any accounts since its incorporation in March 2007. The address shown on the leaflet hasn't been the company's registered address since November 2007. The website they name in connection with the project, www.stopindifference.org is not to be found, and the domain stopindifference.org is not currently registered to anyone.

A search on the phone number given, 07902213700, brings up this site, a compendium of similar clothing collections: http://www.charitybags.org.uk/clothing_collectors_selection.shtml . There the company is said, in a January 2008 leaflet, to be associated with www.lithuanianorphanfellowship.org. That domain too is currently available to buy.

The current leaflet says that "the company will donate 100% of our monthly profits (after the deduction of salaries and operating costs) to this charity [Lithuanian Orphan Fellowship]"). In the absence of any accounts, it's difficult to know if there were any profits.