Companies House Can Help You Avoid Charity Collection Scams

Use Companies House WebCHECK Service to Avoid Charity Collection Scams

3rd October 2007

Not a day goes by at the checkSURE office where we don't receive a call from a worried customer asking whether a company that they have been contacted by is genuine or just another scam. Our advice is always the same - look up the company on the checkSURE Company Search. As checkSURE receives all its company data from Companies House, a genuine UK company will be listed on Companies House website and therefore on the checkSURE website.

Using the checkSURE Company Search is fast and easy. Simply type in the name of the company (or the company registration number) into the box on the upper right hand corner and click "Search". If the company is a genuine company, it will appear on the search along with other free information such as the registered address and company registration number. Companies House also provide a company checking service called WebCHeck on their website. This is accessible via the Companies House website at www.companieshouse.gov.uk and it enables you to search for previous names of companies as well as current and dissolved companies.

Increasingly however, a new scam has come to light - that of companies posing as charities. Residents in Oldham had received flyers through their letter boxes recently asking for charitable donations in the form of unwanted clothes etc. The leaflet claimed to be a charity, collecting clothes for a Third World country, and asked residents to leave donations in a bag on their doorstep to be collected on a certain day. The leaflet also lists a company registration number, an email and a mobile number. Investigations traced these leaflets to a clothing retailer that was simply collecting the donations under false charitable claims and selling them on for a profit.

Although the owner of the company from the above example was caught and shamed, there are many companies like them who aren't. So is there a way to tell the real charities from the unscrupulous scammers? Yes there are several ways.

• Study the leaflet and ask yourself whether you have you ever heard of the charity, if not look them up on the Central Register of Charities. Are there any odd spelling mistakes on the leaflet? Does the bags provided look like charity bags?

• If the leaflet has a company registration number, look it up one Companies House WebCHeck service, find out if the company is associated with any charities, or are they just a profit making company.

If you find that after looking them up at the Central Register of Charities and Companies House that the company is bogus, please contact Consumer Direct on 08454 040506 and report them - make sure that others don't fall victim to them. In this way, Companies House not only provides a free service to help you avoid dealing with bogus companies who wish to part with your money, it can also help you catch the crooks who want to take advantage of your charitable nature!