How to say no to street sellers

Post Reply New Topic

Hi... I need some advice on how to deal with the following situation:

In the UK it has become common for charities to hire young people to approach you in the street and get you to subscribe to a monthly payment to the charity. They are trained to be over-the-top friendly to you and to use this friendliness to stop you from walking away from them. This is because the more you talk to them the less able you will feel to back out of signing up.

I don't have much experience talking to people who (seem to) want to talk to me, and so when they approach me I find it harder to back out than a NT, and when I do I feel worse about it because any excuse I give (even if it is legitimate) it feels as though I am sounding like I am lying about it. I once told one that I had autism to try to hint that I might not be able to say no to their request but it didn't work; they were kind of surprised for a second, then carried on.

I'm not really trying to avoid them because I'm a mean person - I already volunteer regularly - but I don't have a lot of money and when I do donate to charity, I prefer it to be direct and not through third parties taking cuts of the money.

Does anybody have any experience with these people, and do you know a simple thing to say to decline their offer without sounding mean for saying "no".

Chuggers? I hate the bastards.

Don't give them eye-contact, don't stop, don't do anything. Just march on stridently. Even if they want to talk to you, ignore them. They're not there. They're like wasps, a bloody nuisance but they'll go away eventually.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMIQwlvgKn8[/youtube]

Watch and learn.

Say no thanks, smile, and walk on. Smiling optional. I think it helps.

Chuggers - I HATE them.

They say really stupid things to you like, "Oh, so you want children to suffer?" and will say, "Hello? Hello? Are you there?" and walk into your path. Or they'll say how nice you look in a really slimey way. I f***ing hate them.

If I don't give eye contact, they just try even more to grab my attention. Even walking with an umbrella with a spike on the end pointing towards them doesn't work. So now I just look at them and say "No thanks", and sometimes they go away. Otherwise, I don't know how to get rid of them. These people are really a pet hate of mine cos I have to face them almost every day.

Last edited by smudge on 09 Dec 2011, 8:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

I just pretend I'm foreign and mutter some Japanese at them and keep walking. And I always avoid making eye contact.

You could use the good old Scrooge response to that: "If they're going to die they better do it quickly and decrease the surplus population." That'd shut 'em up.

And it would make me look a total a***hole.

As far as they're concerned, doing anything but giving them money would make you look like an a***hole, and who cares if some stranger dislikes your attitude anyway?

It would be the craziest thing to say that you wanted children to die.

I'd probably want to respond with somehing like "No, I just don't want to give your CEO an even fatter bonus this year" or "I'm not giving my money to a bunch of frauds" or "you get enough money out of people's taxes (if a fake charity)" or similar.



I would say it. Not because I want children to die, but because it suits my obnoxious style.

Nod your head politely and with understanding and pass by before they trap you in their sticky web. Just do it, don't say anything.

Best advice. Just ignore them. Pretend they don't exist. If they try to get in your noggin, just move around them.

There aren't too many of them up here and they're mainly women.

It takes a special kind of scumbag to do a job like that for very long. Never, ever, ever give your details to a scrote on the street.

That sounds like you're saying "Yes" to them though. Or they'd take it that way.

Meh, I'm not saying you should actually think that, I'm just saying it's a good response

Indeed. Experience with the "lookey-lookey" men teaches me this. Don't give them eye contact, ignore them, they are not in your headspace. They don't exist. They're at about the same level of existence as Romanian bag-ladies with their Big Ishoos.