After 100,000 fake charity clothing collection bags bearing the charity name Cancer Relief UK were seized in Dover, the area manager for trading standards has said bogus charity collections are a "booming industry".

Mark Rolfe told the BBC that fake charity clothing collections were increasing because of the sheer amount of money that could be made by selling second-hand clothes.

Public complaints to trading standards regarding fake charity collectors have risen significantly in Kent from nine in 2009/10 to 38 in 2010/11. Although there has been no police investigation, trading standards are continuing to look into this latest case which is the first in Kent where a genuine charity’s name has been used.

The bags were imported from Eastern Europe but were seized by the UK Borders Agency at the port earlier this month and have been confirmed as fake by the charity, whose staff could identify immediately they were not legitimate.

Alistair McLean, chief executive of the Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB), told civilsociety.co.uk that while it was difficult to stop the criminal activity he did not want the public to be deterred, but to donate clothes “with a degree of caution”.

He also warned that while a lot of the fake bags previously had bad English and bad grammar, the standard was increasing, making it even more important to check bags for the ‘Give with confidence’ tick logo and charity number.

The FRSB spearheaded the ‘Bogus bags’ campaign in December last year to help increase public awareness of the issue.