Action for Children takes £100k hit from bust agency

Charity agency Neet Feet, which went into voluntary liquidation in the summer following claims over its aggressive fundraising techniques, has left a trail of debt to its former clients, including £100,000 owed to Action for Children.
According to Companies House documents lodged by insolvency firm Alexander Lawson Jacobs, the agency owed the charity £99,059 at the time of its closure, disability charity Scope £10,800, the National Deaf Children’s Society £5,000 and Samaritans £4,000.
Neet Feet’s unpaid debt totalled £499,119, according to the document.
However, one of the agency’s former directors has claimed that Action for Children itself owed the agency £43,000 but the charity insists this amount had already been taken into account when the £99,059 figure was produced.
According to a report in Third Sector magazine, the charity debts are unlikely to be paid off because the company’s assets total just £10,000, which was likely to be paid to former staff. Some 130 people lost their jobs when Neet Feet shut.
The issue first emerged in July when an undercover investigation by The Sun newspaper claimed fundraisers employed by Neet Feet were encouraged to approach properties that displayed “no-cold-calling stickers”.
It also alleged that several of Neet Feet’s fundraisers had served time in prison for crimes including robbery and domestic violence, while others bragged of signing up elderly donors, including an old man who “looked brain dead”, a “disabled, old, vulnerable woman” and that poor and uneducated targets are easier to sign up “because they’ll believe anything that we say”.