At one time my elderly mother gave money to a couple of animal charities and over the next few months she started to get more and more begging letters from all sorts of other animal charities.
She also began to get other "scam" type letters "you have won £25,000" and so on.
Sadly once you reply to one of these charity letters you go on the "gullible" list and your name is passed from one charity to another.
I began to keep track of all the different charities that contacted my mother and when she died it took me weeks to contact all the different charities stop them sending her mail.
To be honest I think some of these charities are on the verge of being scams, for example someone keeps a few donkeys in their field and all of a sudden they are the "Rutland Donkey Sanctuary" or whatever and start sending out begging letters.
Soon the money is rolling in, helping them to pay to live on their farm and look after a few donkeys.
I would love to know how much checking is done on some of these dubious charities.