'Chugger' firm condemned by watchdog The Sunday Telegraph's findings, which revealed aggressive and deceitful tactics and exposed inadequate training, prompted the Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB) to launch an inquiry. The board examined hours of video footage and concludes in a report published today: Tag breached charity law by failing to inform the public how much money it received when asking people in the street for donations; Chuggers broke the code of conduct designed to prevent high-pressure selling; Basic training was inadequate and too little time was given to helping trainees abide by the rules; Proper background checks on fund-raisers with possible criminal records were not done; Tag "repeatedly" blamed "rogue" fund-raisers when there was in fact "evidence of wider organisational shortcomings." The report also criticises Marie Curie for its failure to "adequately monitor" fund-raising activities conducted in the charity's name. Concerns were also raised by the standards board that documentation provided by Tag to the investigation "differed materially from evidence produced by The Sunday Telegraph." This newspaper revealed that Tag failed to inform chuggers that they were required by law to tell people how much money goes to the company and how much to the charity before they make a donation, called a "solicitation statement." One of Tag's chuggers was recorded claiming that all bar 1p of a £5 text donation went to Marie Curie, when the one-off text did not actually cover the cost of paying for Tag's fund-raisers. Only through long-term donations secured in follow-up telephone calls could the charity hope to recoup the campaign's costs. The standards board concluded: "The solicitation statement drafted for the campaign was not compliant with charity law and this matter will be referred to the Charity Commission [the authority responsible for enforcing charity law]." Colin Lloyd, chairman of the standards board, said: "The standard of Tag's fund-raising was not acceptable. Fund-raisers must never mislead, confuse or obstruct the public. He warned professional fund-raisers to follow codes of conduct or "risk damaging the reputation of the organisations they are raising money for." The report highlights the complex regulatory structure surrounding charity fund-raising. Tag does not belong to the self-regulatory standards board and does not have to abide by its recommendations. The board is writing to the Government urging it to make membership of the body mandatory for all large fund-raisers. Fabian French, director of fund-raising for Marie Curie Cancer Care, which is regulated by the FRSB, said: "With the benefit of hindsight ... we accept that we should have monitored Tag's activities more fully. Marie Curie has made extensive changes to its training and monitoring policies. The standards board's report makes a series of recommendations, including calling on Tag to commit to monitoring by the FRSB for a year, and says charities must take "more responsibility for the conduct" of fund-raisers and monitor chuggers more closely. A spokesman for Tag said: "We accepted straight away that the paper had identified some shortcomings in the operation of one of our fund-raising campaigns, and took immediate action to put these right. The FRSB found breaches of the IoF [Institute of Fundraising] code relating to those issues on which we took remedial action, and we accept, as we have done throughout, that we fell short of the high standards we set ourselves. Tag will co-operate with any inquiry into the matter by the Charity Commission, and will welcome clarification of the legal requirements for this new type of fund-raising.