The RSPCA Lancashire East team is warning residents about scam buckets where people are purporting to be from the charity to scam residents out of money.
The charity currently does not have members of the team out on the streets collecting funds and wants to make sure people remain cautious and to ask for ID before donating money.
James Stevens, chief executive officer at the RSPCA Lancashire East Branch, said: “Our concern is that people are out and about going around pubs and clubs in town with buckets which are logoed up with the RSPCA’s logo when we don’t normally do charity bucket collections of that type.
“The only time we might do a collection is for example if we are doing an official street collection where there will be lots of people around, we will be in a public place, clearly identified as RSPCA personnel with tabards and logos and our collectors will have official identification.
“And obviously our concern is that people will give money, there are very very generous people throughout the East Lancashire area, thinking they are giving it to help the animal centre here just outside Accrington.
“And in fact, they are not doing that, it is someone else there who is not a genuine collector for the RSPCA.
“I know it has happened in the past for lots of charities, it’s not just us, unfortunately people pretend they are from other charities too.”
James said himself and other members of the charity feel angry and upset that people are scamming residents.
He said: “It makes us feel very angry and upset that people are doing it when we work so very hard to do the work that we do, rehabilitating and rehoming sick, injured, abandoned and abused animals.
“The team here work extremely hard in all weathers and quite rightly will get upset that our name is being taken in vain.
“We need every penny that we can get.
Official charity bucket (Image: RSPCA Lancashire East)
“We are supported by local people, every penny that we get here at Lancashire East has come from people in East Lancashire and that’s how we survive.
“So, anybody who detracts from that is going to make us very angry and very upset.”
If people do want to donate, James said there are ways for people to know it is authentic.
He said: “So we do have collection boxes in a number of local shops, pubs and more and they will be clearly logoed on or behind the counter and they will say our names and those are all official, we collect from shops regularly.
“We don’t do many street collections as there are lots of regulations involved so they are not something we tend to do often and otherwise from time to time we run events which are well publicised where we will have collection boxes and other ways people can support us.
“Otherwise, if people want to support us, they can donate to us on our website.”
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