How to say no to street sellers

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I Really H8 Chuggers too!

I live in the middel of a city in Denmark and often when I go out for shopping then they go right into my way and start out with Hi even their T-shirts says "Hi" and its always the same group from human rights campaign, first time I was listing to them and I said I have so much stuff to worry about in my own life to thinking so much about Africa and the lady seemed to find me rude but with my autism I have so many problems in life to think about etc so I said no and walked away that was in 2013, the Chuggers came to my city in 2013. but every since they get new young ppl in to do the Chuggers job and I'm got more pissed at them I have a few times given em the middel finger and the guy was like "ok have a good day" and even then they just keep on getting new young ppl on the street and they do the same thing over and over.... I wish Chuggers got banned...

I just stare right past them and keep my hands low so they can't give me anything. Same for gypsies. I don't have space in my head for this s**t, never mind the money.

We have people like that who work at kiosks here in the US as well who will follow every patron who they can spot who aren't even interested in buying their merchandise. One of the worst places is in Las Vegas too. Things you could tell them are

1. This isn't a good time
2. Please don't follow me because it's harassment

I treat them the same way I treat beggars. I ignore them (if I even notice them) and move on.

If they still make an attempt, I either ignore them and move on, or reject them very clearly.

"Sorry not interested" combined with making stop gesture with a hand seems to work for me. The pushier ones will sometimes continue to engage with questions like "why aren't you interested?" but I don't reply to that and just keep walking. This has worked for me without fail. Even if they start with something like "hello sir/ma'am how are you doing?" I just go "Sorry not interested".

I'm not gonna get all smug or passive-aggressive or pretend I'm unable to speak the language to someone who is just doing a job. I make it clear they won't get a sale from me, so that they can move to another target.

A former colleague did such "chugging" work for a while and told me all about it. This is a very biased and localized view: Here in the Netherlands these "chuggers" are all paid employees. Not volunteers. A charity hires companies that send the chuggers around town. The chuggers work for a different charity every day. The charity pays those chugging companies. Effectively, a new donator doesn't bring in any money for the charity until after they've been donating for a full year. The charity benefits more if you directly donate, but chugging is very effective and is still profitable enough for charities to keep doing.

There's some really neat psychology behind the chugging. Often they will start with a bunch of questions to which pretty much everyone will say "Yes.". This makes it harder for a client to later say "No." This is actually a classic sales technique straight from the 1936 "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie.

Turnover for those jobs is pretty high, they fire the one that makes the fewest sales per month or so. Of course, regardless of how hard everyone works, there's always going to be someone at the bottom on the performance chart. On top of that, there are bonuses for every successful sale.

The risk of being fired and the bonuses for getting lots of sales are incentives to get the chuggers to be more aggressive without management ever having to ask them to break any rules.

Supposedly there's a magic phrase coded in law, something like "I can't afford that" at which point the salespeople have to stop. I've never had to use it. Although it does seem a bit silly to say that when you're in a shopping street.

Someone shared a great secret with me on this a long time ago.

When passing a sales person either on the street or at a mall kiosk (cell phone kiosks used to be really bad with this) keep looking straight ahead and don't make eye contact. If they try talking to you raise your hand half way as if to give a very distracted and self-absorbed "hi" and keep walking without making eye contact.

If you do that you've asserted your space and autonomy all the while not being any more rude than you had to.

I just ignore them these days, I had a very pretty girl selling me lipstick for ten minutes two years ago in the centre of town saying you're a good looking chap, I'm sure you'll find someone to pass it onto, I was torn between being charmed by her and knowing she just wanted to make some numbers up haha. Then when I was at my first uni I was almost talked into joining the army because I didn't know how to decline and I was in a queue waiting for sausage rolls! A few weeks ago it took me five minutes to wriggle out of being forced to buy a group of kids some beer, I couldn't figure out how to tell them to get lost without actually saying it so I told them I just saw a police car pull up around the corner because someone probably called the cops on you all.

There is also the option of clicking the trigger on one of these ...

There are two ways, acknowledging or not acknowledging. In the first, you keep walking, don't stop, but look the person in the eye, smile and say firmly "Sorry no." And keep moving. In the second, you just keep walking and don't even look at them. Why should you have to acknowledge someone who is getting in your face uninvited? Don't feel bad, just keep moving. They're in the business of that happening, they can deal with it.