Trading Standards warn of counterfeit charity wristbands
Howard Lake | 21 June 2005 | News
The success of charity wristbands as campaigning and fundraising tools continues to be exploited by con men, according to The Guardian.
According to Hugh Muir’s report in The Guardian on 11 June 2005, over 23 million charity wristbands have been sold.
However, some traders are overcharging for wristbands and keeping the profit themselves, while others are simply selling counterfeit bands, with the Livestrong variety proving particularly popular.
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Bryan Lewin, the Trading Standards Institute’s lead officer for counterfeiting, told The Guardian: “It is dispicable that they are taking away money from such worthy causes and conning the consumer to make money.”
Trading Standards officers in various parts of the country have acted after receiving phone calls from concerned members of he public. The Liverpool Daily Post for example reports that Sefton’s Trading Standards team “had seized undisclosed quantities of fake wristbands in Southport and Bootle.”
The Institute of Fundraising is working with charities and the Charity Commission to address the issue.
The counterfeit issue for charity wristbands follows on from another controversy when some charities had to make changes to where they sourced wristbands from after reports that some wristbands had been made in conditions that breached international standards for working conditions.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.