Donation-Collectors in Tokyo reliable?

Every now and then we've seen people, mostly women, around Tokyo who are supposedly collecting donations for earthquake-victims in Japan (for buying blankets etc.).
They especially tend to adress foreigners (which is a rare thing according to my experience).


Are these people reliable?


I'd think earthquake-victims were being taken good care of in an industrialised country such as Japan.

Looking forward to your answers,
Jan

DocRod,

I don't know which group you are talking about (I am Japanese), but when I see donation collectors or boxes, I ALWAYS check their names and do some research before I make any donations. A lot of the times, a mere internet search tells me the group is unreliable.

By "unreliable" I don't necessarily mean "fake." It is a difficult task to pass on donations properly, and many of the groups seem (at least to me) like they don't know what they're doing. I'm sure the people standing there are just good-will volunteers who believe in what they're doing, but if the group is not steady enough, their effort could end in vain.

In these cases, I usually tell them that I make donations only through certain groups. I don't want these good peole to think that I don't approve of what they are trying to achieve. I'm just trying to do it in a different way.

oh i have seen some for a tsunami or something a few months back. I couldnt donate much but I made a 500 yen donation to some guy in Harajuku. Partly because i dont want to be bothered. And partly because I hope something good will come back to myself.

And then I saw some lady talking about that same thing in Shinagawa, but I told her I had already made a donation before.

But anyway, they were talking to japanese and foreigners about it, not just foreigners..
and upon donation, you receive a mini newspaper thing, and they would like you to sign your name on something...

It didnt seem so fake. and I dont see people asking all the time either, i guess if it was a hoax, they would do it on the cheap, make handmade posters and stuff like that, instead of wasting a lot of money on equipment and flyers without knowing if they are going to actually make all the money they spent back, and some profit.