# Charity wristbands alert 'unfair'

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2005/04/03/charity-wristbands-alert-039unfair039/
- Published: 2005-04-03T23:00:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

![](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/files/images/news/3082.jpg)

A provider of charity silicon wristbands argues that the Charity Commission’s advice
in its recent alert about counterfeit charity

wristbands is unfair. Adrian Baugh, Managing Director at IF Solutions Ltd, explains.

Last week the Charity Commission put out an alert that conmen were selling fake 
charity silicon wristbands that were lining their own pocket and not raising funds
for charities. The Commission therefore advised that “anyone

wanting to buy a wristband [should] avoid paying for the bands via auction sites
and other non-charitable web pages.”

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IF Solutions is one of the UK’s leading providers of charity silicon wristbands.
Its Managing Director Adrian Baugh takes issue with this advice. “IF Solutions do
not, of course, condone the blatant sale of

counterfeit merchandise”, he said. “However, we do feel that it is unfair to assume
that just because a wristband appears on an online auction site that it is a counterfeit
and therefore is diverting funds away from the

coffers of bone fide charities.”

Mr Baugh questions why charity wristbands are selling for so much more on some sites
than the charities charge for the legimate item on their own website. “Would you
pay more”, he asks, “for a bootleg cd or DVD at a car boot sale than you would for
the genuine article from a high street retailer?”

The answer to this paradox is, in his view, quite simple: it is “a lack of supply
on the part of the charities themselves.” He argues that “if these organisations
were to make the bands readily available to the public at a reasonable price of 
perhaps £1.00 to £2.00 each there would not be a need

to pay ridiculous amounts on auction websites.”

Indeed, as he points out, some charities are using the Internet effectively in selling
their wristbands. As a result, they are “gaining far more revenue per sale than 
they would through selling them solely in their own charity shops.”

So, Mr Baugh, argues that “the charities and their fundraising managers have it 
within their power to stifle the counterfeit market that exists… by simply making
their own bands more accessible to the general public.” He adds: “if fundraisers
thought for a moment about the nation’s insatiable desire for these silicon bands
and applied a little of the enterprise and investment shown by the counterfeiters
to their own marketing and

distribution strategies the coffers would swell considerably!”

He does acknowledge that manufacturers such as IF Solutions have a role to play,
in particular by policing orders that they accept. His company receives almost daily
orders for ‘plainly counterfeit designs’, with the pioneering ‘LIVESTRONG’ design
being the most regularly requested. “We would never entertain such enquiries let
alone manufacture them” he adds, “although obviously the same cannot be said for
all manufacturers and distributors otherwise this problem would not exist in the
first place.”

Mr Baugh points out that not all wristbands have been distributed to raise

funds. The popular blue ‘Beat Bullying’ wristbands for example were made to raise
awareness, not funds, and “no charge was made for the supply of them, not even for
postage.” It might be galling to see these bands change hands for £10 or more online,
but in terms of their objective of awareness

raising, “one could argue mission very much accomplished!”

Mr Baugh concludes that counterfeiting should be addressed, but suggests that “the
ultimate solution lies not entirely with a call to trading standards or the police
but a wake up call to those responsible in fundraising to make hay while the silicon
sun shines.”

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