Tea bags and wheelchairs
Oh dear, oh dear. I have twice this week been asked (at my gym and another weekly activity I participate in) to keep my tea bag labels/tags for a research project which will, upon receipt of certain (undefined) numbers of tea bag tags, donate wheelchairs to people who need them.
Is it because I am a slightly bitter cynic that I don’t believe this? Would a slightly bitter cynic actually keep four tags before deciding to put on her research hat?
It struck a chord with me, because during the research for my book on stamps, Blue Mauritius, I came across similar stories dating back to the nineteenth century, which promised to build a hospital/ward for sick children if the [insert your local hospital here] could get a million stamps (or variations of this theme). Just search the wonderful Trove database of digitised Australian newspapers on million stamps hospital and you’ll see ample evidence of this, back to at least the 1890s.
This current tea bag thing sounds similar. Sure enough, a Google search on tea bag label tag wheelchair turns up a scan in Google News from the Connecticut Sunday Herald, dated 15 October 1972, “Tea Bag Mystery”, reading:
Can’t get any confirmation on those reports concerning a drive to collect tea bag tags for wheelchairs. Readers tell us many in town collecting the tags with the understanding it will help the handicapped. Rehabilitation Center knows nothing about it nor do the local hospitals. Sounds like the old cigarette package drive that fooled so many people a few years back.
So that’s almost forty years ago, referring to another even older scam, with antecedents pre-1900.
The only other thing of note I found was a comment on an article about raising funds for wheelchairs through Rotary, dated 15 May 2011, asking “Our Croquet Club is collecting tea bag labels for the purpose of buying wheelchairs, how does this work, where do the labels go, and how many are needed to buy a chair. Our contact says they are collect at Dandenong hospital, more info please.” It seems a few other people/groups have collected tea bag tags over the years, but right now there is nothing concrete on the web to verify this collecting drive in Melbourne, Australia.
Fascinating, don’t you think?
I am also mystified (and a cynic) – but in this case nobody “loses” anything so I too am prepared to do it. One of the latest rumours I heard was that Lindsay Fox had taken over the project but … if true I would imagine that it would be broadcast.
I agree Jo, about being more broadcast. Surely someone would be making mileage, or making sure that people who are in two minds about collecting have all the information they need to assuage their doubts and get on and do it.
I’ve wondered about the nobody loses thing – a lot of email scams that go around don’t have viruses attached, so do no actual harm to the users, other than simply to waste their time. Perhaps it is a little like teenagers who make silly phone calls to strangers (of which I’ve been the victim once), merely to laugh at what you can make unsuspecting people do.
One downside of it for me is that it builds my cynicism. But, as a researcher, I find it fascinating!
why not ask Lindsay Fox – he does many great things it would not be a shock
People need to know if the tea bag tag story
is a hoax.where does one find out ?
Lesley, I don’t know. The sign advertising for tea bags at our gym actually uses the word “apparently” in the sentence about the purpose of the collection (“apparently” using the tea bags for research purposes). At my sister’s workplace the sign even says “don’t ask” how this would help research, just do it. What anybody should do in a workplace, gym, club situation is ask the person who first suggests it for bona fide proof of who the bags will be sent to. What is the name of the organisation and the contact person, and what is the phone number/address. If the person who suggests it is collecting on behalf of a third person (that is, is at least one remove from the person who they think is the end point of collecting, which I suspect is likely to be the case) then suggest that unless they can provide that information they are wasting everybody’s time. Refer them to this blog post and the example from 1972.
If you do find something out, please report back!
Is the collecting of toilet roll centres for charity also a scam ?
In a VCCA newsletter of 2007 vintage, there is a reference to Liptons providing sponsorship for wheelchairs for 2 children, but that the scheme had since stopped.
@Mary on June 20th, 2011 at 10:35 am:
Kids at a school near me are doing the teabag thing and that was the only reference online I’ve read of it that seemed somewhat credible.
All in all I think it’s some sort of prank/hoax/what have you.
I first came across this teabag-tag-wheelchair-fundraising idea late last year at our local church. Someone at the Sunday School was encouraging the kids to bring in hundreds of them.
However, my teenage son questioned the sense of it immediately. He pointed out that, since no brand of tag was specified, no single company could be benefitting enough from increased sales to make it worthwhile for them to fund a wheelchair.
Alternatively, what possible value could be derived from collecting huge quantities of the paper tags themselves? If it was all about recycling the paper, either for profit or some general environmental benefit, then surely the benefit would be greater if the organisation responsible for the scheme asked people to collect some larger paper product, like an egg carton. The requirement for masses of tiny unbranded paper tags sounded too arbitrary to be plausible.
Then, in January, a plastic tub appeared in my lunchroom at work, asking for people to deposit their tags for the same altruistic purpose. Since it only took two seconds to tear and deposit my tag each time, I did it robotically for months, and ignored the voices in my head that called out “Sucker!”
Until this week, when I decided I had to spend at least 15 minutes on establishing whether there was any credibility to the scheme. I think it’s funny that there are several items about it appearing online, in a relatively short space of time, as if a lot of people, like me, couldn’t stand it any longer.
Not only this site, but also the following item from the Herald-Sun, which answers the rumour about Lindsay Fox being involved:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad/in-black-and-white-no-open-door-policy-here/story-fn6bn9st-1226078609005
Thanks Helen. Yours was the first item I saw, and it encouraged me to look further. I have since pasted a printout of the Herald-Sun item in the lunchroom, but I wonder if it will make any difference to the overflowing tub.
Fantastic Ron! Thanks for pointing out the Herald-Sun article. I should probably print it out and distribute to the three places I know collecting the tags. Because I’m sure this is more likely to cause them to think than my reasoning and historical demonstration of the 100+ year history of this sort of sillyness.
When you think about the research/data collection aspect of it, along the lines of what your son so rightly pointed out, if one company was doing it, they could surely readily buy the information/stats from the big two supermarket chains about what tea labels people are buying/drinking.
Why not print out the forty year old US article and stick it next to the Herald-Sun article? I think I will try both and take them along to my gym on Monday!
I forgot to include two other links I found, both of which support the idea that it has to be a specific brand to make any sense.
The first one suggests there was a teabag tag scheme run by Liptons in Australia, but it finished in 2007.
http://www.vcca.asn.au/files/newsletter_04_november_2007.pdf
The second one establishes that there is a genuine wheelchair scheme currently running in the UK.
http://www.wheelchairfoundationuk.org/news.php?passnewsid=34
Is it possible that the current craze in Melbourne has somehow been started by people innocently confusing it with the one in the UK? Or is it deliberate?
We, here at our Berwick retirement villge, have been collecting the teabag labels for months…and i was told on Sunday, after querying it with the person to whom I hand the labls that it has been ascertained that it is the chelsea branch of rotary who are collecting them…I have not been able to contact them yet. We *oldies* don*t have time to query things like this – we just get on with doing volunteer work whenever and wheever we can – and teabag label collecting is easy in comprison to some of the things we do …but until someone with more time to query, investigate, probe into the scheme and find absolute proof that it IS a scam – we will carry on collecting the damn things
Thanks Audrey. My gym has now decided to stop collecting the tags, as nobody could verify who they were for. I have sent an email to Chelsea Rotary here in Melbourne asking for comment. Hopefully we can get an answer for you.
The tea bag collecting has been going on for the past few months in our workplace, and no one seems to know why or who it benefits……however i have discovered a few tags I’d not seen before and bought the actual teas! The mix of paper tags in the collection container is quite colourful! I doubt there is a real use of the tags other to make a collage…and that I am about to do!
I love that Naomi! You bought the teas! You must take a photograph of your collage and share it here.
I too am mystified by this, I have been collecting them for ages with the help of several friends and passing them on to someone who goes to Probus so I wonder what is happening to them, at present I have a boot full of them waiting to hand across, I will ring Chelsea Probus this week as they published something in the Herald Sun saying they are collecting them. Probably a scam but why would someone bother going to all the trouble for nothing what a pity that no one does do something with them as I am sure there are lots of people out there in need on the wheel chairs
Stumbled on this page after hearing a caller to Radio 3AW’s Neil Mitchell program asking about what to do with the tags for the “Teabag tags for Wheelchairs” thing!!!!! I too can’t find anything that would indicate that this is in fact “real”. What a shame all the “good work” by so many can’t be put to good use.
I have been collecting “tags for wheelchairs” at work for many months now, firstly for a lady at my father-in-law’s retirement village, who collected them for her daughter, who ???. Then, when she was told no more were required, I continued to collect them for my daughter, who gives them to a schoolteacher, who ???. Similarly, I’ve heard of three other groups collecting tags, but all have the same story – they pass them on to someone else, and they don’t know how it works, who the sponsor is, or who benefits.
So, in view of the lack of evidence that this is genuine, I will try to stop collecting. It will not be easy though – it has become a compulsion.
I never did hear back from Chelsea Rotary, so would be interested to know if you learn anything from Chelsea Probus Sandy.
It is a shame that good intentions aren’t translating to good use. I hope that this doesn’t dissuade people from helping out where they can in the future Rosy.
That’s what I suspected Jim. I hope you can break the compulsion – but there’s a lot to love about collecting. Perhaps you can turn that compulsion toward something else? I still collect stamps that come my way via the ordinary mail – in more the original way of the earliest stamp collectors, not philatelists. I rip them off the envelopes (unless they have an interesting postmark, then I keep the whole envelope) and stuff them in other envelopes or a basket on my kitchen bench. I cannot help myself, and tell myself that one day my daughter will love the little artworks and use them in artwork of her own.
Collecting can be very rewarding!
I and many of my friends have been collecting tea bag tags for years, my daughter passes them on to someone ??? a friend of a friend, I dont know if its a scam or not, but it doesnt cost me anything, its no trouble, and if there is a sceric of a chance of someone acctually getting a wheel chair out of it, well great.
I appreciate the sentiment and desire to help, but I don’t think there is a skerrick of a chance that your actions are benefitting anyone, and that your time and effort would be better spent dropping 50c into a tin every time you have a cup of tea and donating that cold hard cash to a reputable charitable organisation, along the lines of what happens at Australia’s Biggest Morning tea.
This tea bags and wheelchairs thing does, unfortunately I think, distract people from other ways they could legitimately be helping people and groups in need.
Everywhere I go _ collect your teabag tags…teabag tags…teabag tags…But where do they end up? Colleen heard it from someone at church who heard it from someone at the gym who heard it from someone at work ,or sister in law, neighbour, lady on bus – and they all swear black and blue that if you save 5000 tags a deserving person will get a wheelchair. I’ve said it sounds like an urban myth to me and OOOH the dirty looks I get! I know people say, well it’s
not doing any harm and just maybe someone gets a chair out, but I speak as a person who looked after her wheelchair-bound father for the last 15 years of his life, and now my sister has been diagnosed with M S and it wont be long before she too is unable to walk. Luckily my family is able to afford good quality wheelchairs – they can be staggeringly expensive. I’ts a sad thought that there are people out there who can’t afford one and are being deceived into believing that one will be presented to them after they reach the required number of tags. I like Helen’s idea of a donation tin -tea and coffee are free at our work, I’d be happy to pop in a silver coin each tea break.
I understand, that Bacchus Marsh is collecting Tea bag tags as originally thought for wheel chairs
An article in todays Herald Sun – Chelsea Rotary say it is NOT collecting tea bag tags and has never participated in any wheechair for tag program, despite the people who claim otherwise. I actually emailed Liptons (Unilever) to ask if they had such a program and they say they have not. They even asked me to phone them so they could “discuss the matter further” – I’m curious but their operating hours are my work hours.
If anyone’s interested in contacting Liptons, the toll-free number is: 1800 638 683. Business hours only. Please post if you find out anything of interest.
I was told about ‘collecting’ tea bags 12 mths. ago and have been ! saving ever since and also telling others as it seemed a harmless thing to do for ‘charity’. CWA was brought into the equation by suggestions that they were a cpllection point and I write to refute this entirely. It has all been nothing but a scam with a few paper bags full of tiny bits of coloured paper to put into recycling instead of the compost, as I can find no basis in fact the this urban and rural myth.
I was also told to collect tea bag tags and so i have been for the past year. Apparently it was for a school and all they needed to collect was 1kg of tea bag tags and then a wheelchair will be donated to someone? They have since stopped collecting the tags but the habit has grown on me and i’m still collecting so if anybody is in need of tags please let me know as i have sooooo many. I love my tea.
Thank goodness that there are interesting and interested people in this world. I loved reading the history and the comments about the teabag paper tag. I admit to collect these little tags but more out of joy to have a chat at the tag jar with other collectors than anything else. I got into it through friend, through a friend… and their version was the Red Cross is collecting this tags. I can’t remember when but only a few weeks ago the Herold Sun published an article about the tags calling the whole thing a scam. But, I am laughing now, the person who got us into the collecting mode pointed out that there was “no author” mentioned below the article so “they” must be wrong. I love the idea of making an artwork out of this tags or getting some inspiration of which tea I wouldn’t mind buying. Thank you everyone for these comments, they really made my day !!!
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