Door to door callers - Red Cross

Got a slightly odd door-to-door caller today around 3pm in Honor Oak. A chap (perhaps 25-30) and a young lad (maybe 15) claiming to be from the Red Cross.

They seemed a bit unsure of themselves when I answered and they talked briefly about first aid - asking if I was qualified (in light of the Grenfell tragedy), and then something about training people up “for the price of a cup of coffee,” yet didn’t seem interested in taking any money off me or pointing me toward further information - in fact they just ticked my house number on a sheet of paper and walked off.

Did they have any ID or even a tabard or a clipboard with a letterhead? Sounds odd.

They did have a tabard and an ID badge which looked reasonably convincing. It may well be legit, but I’ve asked the Red Cross for confirmation via Twitter

I had that yesterday as well. Just one guy, he said they wanted to come back in a month, to sign me up to donate to them to train people in first aid, he used the same phrase ‘for the price of a cup of coffee’. Seemed a bit of a strange request.
When I said I wasn’t interested and already donated to charity he said ok and left very quickly and wasn’t as persistent as the usual charity callers.

The Red Cross has a hand list of where their fundraisers are currently working door-to-door

which does include…

… so probably legit… legit, but odd.

… or refreshing that they are using inexperienced volunteers rather than professional charity canvassers?

fair point… in that case i’ll go with ‘refreshingly odd’

Thanks for that reassurance. I’d prefer ‘refreshingly odd’ or ‘inexperienced’ to ‘dodgy’