My View: Taking the clothes off our backs while cheating charities

Normally, I use the bags as bin liners. Alerted by the misspelling, 'no brick-a-brack', I take a closer look at this particular one, which reveals itself to be a nasty, pernicious scam.

Nasty because it exploits people's generosity, and pernicious because it affects the credibility of genuine charity collections.

Unbelievably, the scam is legal and the local trading standards department is powerless. A charity needs a licence to collect goods, under the 1939 House to House Collections Act; a commercial collector operating for gain does not, so long as it makes its purpose clear.

On this bag, the commercial intent is well disguised. The bag is cleverly designed with images of happy children playing, and a registration number.

When I look up the company on the internet, they are, indeed, registered under that number with Companies House, but have submitted no accounts.

I bet they have no intention of submitting them either. After a few months, they can close down their operations, and start afresh under a new name, counting on the fact that the authorities have bigger fish to fry.

We all have busy lives, and putting a bag of old clothes outside the door may seem an easy way to get rid of them with a clear conscience; certainly less effort than trekking to the nearest charity shop during its restricted opening hours.

Think before you fill that bag though. Do you really want that good coat your child has grown out of to end up at a car boot sale or on eBay?

Even so-called loyalty collectors, who state clearly but in small type what proportion of their takings goes to the chosen charity, make an undue profit out of our cast-offs. If it wasn't big business, they wouldn't spend money on temporary labour and vans.

In these straitened times, you can't blame hard-pressed charities for accepting any handouts, from any source, but do the maths for yourself.

Supposing a loyalty collector states that 10 per tonne of clothes collected goes to charity, and let's say that nice blazer from Marks & Sparks weighs one kilo. One kilo is one thousandth of a tonne, so in exchange for the gift of a wearable garment, the charity gets the grand sum of 1p.

Whereas if I make the effort to hand a blazer over the counter in a charity shop, the shop can sell it on for a fiver, and I feel I've done my bit.

Don't let the rip-off merchants get away with it. The next time a bag pops through the door, take a closer look.