Chugg-off!

     Man:  "Five minutes of your time."

Woman:  "Don't bother."

     Man:  "I have fu*king bothered. What the fu*k are you going
               to do about it?"

Woman:  "I beg your pardon. Who do you work for?"

     Man:  "I'm not telling you, you fu*king stupid cow."

A scene from Shameless? Or dialogue from a gritty east end drama? Neither. The above is a verbatim record of an exchange I had with a non-branded chugger in the heart of Covent Garden last week. It's the second time I've encountered this vile, pathologically aggressive scouser and it was a carbon copy of the first.

Chuggers: Kagool-donning, clipboard-hugging, pedestrian-botherers, or people doing a worthy job in often difficult circumstances, depending on your point of view. They prefer the term F2F fundraisers (Face to Face), whereas I prefer the term 'tw*ts'. I'm one of the many who loathe them… with a passion.

They are intrusive - in your face - figuratively and very often literally. They leap in your path like deluded stalkers: in their world you are always happy to see them. They walk backwards while haranguing you, or skip crab-like as you continue to walk, and all the time they are delivering their piss-poor jokes, attempts at charm or whatever basic psychology they've been armed with by their masters.

They have no common sense. It's peeing down and I'm carrying lots of stuff plus an umbrella and the determination and sense of purpose betrayed by my gait would signal to a Bakewell tart that I need to get somewhere (not least out of the fecking rain) but the chugger-chumps see this as the perfect time to impede my progress with their buffoonery.

They employ dubious tactics when knocked-back. The anecdotes are legion, from the pathetic use of GCSE psychology to the downright wrong. "Do you know how many puppies will die now?" That from a dog charity chugger after a failed hijacking. Or "I bet you feel bad now" from a cancer charity chugger.

And their tactics are increasingly suspect. Chuggers 'working' for Shelter in Bristol recently boarded a commuter bus to 'work' the captive audience. This, understandably, resulted in many complaints from passengers, the bus company and the police, all of which resulted in Shelter having to make a very public apology on behalf of their 3rd party employees. If I had been on that bus they would have needed to run for shelter I can assure you. And can I just take a minute to say what a fabulous illustration of brand building and brand ambassadorship that was.

We all have the right to go about our business without being harassed. Some of them just do not take no for an answer, they follow you down the street in a totally befuddled belief that they are being ever so engaging. Villiers Street (which is adjacent to Charing Cross station and the conduit from Strand to Embankment tube) is like a magnet for them. It takes around three to four minutes to traverse the length of the street and yet last week I was accosted by no less than five chuggers within the time it took me to do so.

I, like many others, have developed strategies for dealing with them and these sit on a scale, which is in turn based on the levels of annoyance they cause and the obnoxiousness I encounter. Villiers Street is a good place to observe their tactics and the reactions they provoke. People crisscross the street in some strange dance of avoidance; they dart between pillars; pretend to be on the phone (not that that stops them) or find refuge in the shadow of PWC's entrance. Most ignore the chuggers' advances or if they do reply they are polite: "no thank you" and so on.

If asked for two minutes of my time I stop and then ask them for £5, explaining that my time is metered and they must pay for it like anyone else. Or I pretend to have a conversation with an invisible friend. But most of the time I say "don't bother". Much of the time I needn't say anything at all since I can be seen from space by dint of my hair and they now know me, so when they see me they step aside and I get to be Charlton Heston.

It's a totally disingenuous form of fundraising since many givers are ignorant of the commerce involved, namely that chuggers are paid workers, not volunteers. That the 1st year of their Direct Debit donation goes to the chugger agency and that the brands involved pay the agency a fee for every signature they secure. The BBC Newsnight investigative team discovered that in 2011 some 750,000 people gave their details and put their signatures on Direct Debit agreements, each one for an average donation of £90 per year. They also discovered that the average payment for each signature was £100 plus, the British Heart Foundation paid £136 per signature and Cancer Research UK £112, it also paid chugging agencies a whopping £3million that year.

No wonder they're so insistent given the moolah they're making, but the tide is turning. In Wolverhampton the council is to impose fines of up to £500 if chuggers are aggressive or hassle shoppers and complaints from shoppers and businesses in Islington have resulted in it being the first borough to start legal proceedings to ban them outright. Good.

The brands who employ these agents do so because they need repeat donations and they say that the monies these harpies accrue outweighs the cost to them. Presumably they think that the damage to their brand is worth it too as long as they get the money. It's hard to see it any other way. And Kate Swann allowed them to set up camp in WH Smith. Great idea. Spread the love. As if she didn’t have enough problems. I can say categorically that I will never, ever give money to any charity/brand employing these locusts.

The scouser chugger at the beginning of this post was un-bibbed or kagooled. It may have been under his civilian coat, or he may have removed it. The latter is the more sinister interpretation because as I said to the three policemen I bumped into shortly afterwards "I don't think I'm that special. I think it’s his MO." What I now know is that his behavior is actionable. In fact I have a very good understanding of the law in respect of chuggers. So they had better be careful, or they could find themselves contributing to my favorite charity...me.