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Open petition: Make it a criminal offence to collect street donations if not a charity

Created by Ian Sterrett
Closes on

We are concerned about bogus charity collections on our streets. Some operations that claim to be charitable are run as a "for profit" business with very little of their collections used to help anyone.

We want you to make it a criminal offence with a mandatory prison term to collect money on the street, except for collections by registered charities. We think current fines for unlicensed street collections and street trading are small and can be easily recovered by scammers. The punishment needs to act as a deterrent.

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  • Petition published

    This petition can now be signed.

    If this petition gets 10,000 signatures, government will respond to it.

    If this petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament.

    This petition will stay open until 9 August 2026.