Charity begins at home, they say, and Ursula Dowd thought raffling her £250,000 house was an ideal way to raise money for a children's helpline.

Her idea was ambitious but simple.

To enter, people had to pay £5 and describe in up to 25 words why they deserved to win her home.

If enough people entered, she thought, she could raise the market value of her home, cover the raffle's administration costs and make a £75,000 donation to ChildLine. One lucky winner would get the £250,000, three-bedroom house in Billingshurst for a fiver. In theory, there would be no losers.

All went to plan when she launched the competition in June. Hundreds of people entered their names on her web site, www.hometowin.com.

Within three weeks there were 19,000 entrants, raising £95,000.

Her raffle captured the public's imagination and this, in turn, led to a report about her scheme in The Argus.

It prompted a mix of bizarre and sometimes touching replies. However, there were some who became suspicious of her generosity.

The hits to her web site took on a sinister edge. She began receiving nasty phone calls and emails from cynical members of the public. Some accused her of being a con-artist.

Mrs Dowd, 45, says she has lost her faith in society following her ordeal.

She said: "Every time I opened an email or picked up a phone, someone was attacking me. It was not nice.

"I will suffer more before this is over but that's my problem. I got myself into this and I have learnt a lot about society. Now I think, why bother? It was a real slap in the face after giving a lot of time and energy."

Mrs Dowd even had to stop her 14-year-old daughter Larissa from answering the telephone to protect her from belligerent callers.

The nasty comments wore her down and eventually she became so dismayed by the negative response that she decided not to carry on.

Her mission to help children in need ended in a mire of spitefulness.

She has to begin the disheartening task of returning £5 to every entrant. She has also been left with an estimated £25,000 bill for administration costs and the charity will receive nothing.

Mrs Dowd said: "I will have to pay all the credit card charges for the money we received from people using credit cards, otherwise this will hound me for ever. How could you believe that could happen?

"It's one of the worst experiences I have ever gone through. In the first three-and-a-half weeks I received 19,000 entries. Every one of those has to go back. I have to have them all logged and identified - it's not just the credit card charges, it's also the solicitors' fees and postage.

"We cannot siphon off any for ChildLine. I tried to do something different, I stepped outside a box and people thought I was on a scam.

"It was not anger at the beginning - I thought it was really sad. Then the anger built up and it got to the point I did not want to pick up the phone."

Mrs Dowd shut her competition web site down to prevent more money being sent to her.

The Argus had received several emails from entrants concerned they were being ripped off after getting no replies from emails to Mrs Dowd.

She hopes to begin the lengthy process of returning the estimated £95,000 next month.

She still does not let her daughter pick up the phone. After the entrants' money has been returned, she will take a more conventional approach to selling her property before moving to Wiltshire.

ChildLine spokeswoman Clare Prescott said: "We are very disappointed when fund-raising activities do not work for whatever reason. In this case, we were fully aware of Mrs Dowd's intention to donate a substantial amount of money to us.

"The correspondence she received was completely inappropriate and unnecessary. We fully supported what she was doing. If it had all gone to plan, it could have resulted in a lot of money for ChildLine. Now we won't receive anything and we always need more to fund our valuable service for young, vulnerable people."

Mrs Dowd was not the first to try to sell her home for charity or receive vicious emails from cynics. Doreen McLaren, 47, from Tillington, near Petworth, has been raffling her luxury £750,000 converted barn to help raise awareness of Hughes syndrome, which has plagued her life for eight years. The little-known condition causes migraines, dizzy spells and aching muscles.

Mrs McLaren, still recovering from surgery for a brain aneurysm, said she had also weathered emails calling her names like "scheming bitch" since her raffle began in March. She said: "My heart goes out to Mrs Dowd. I get a lot of people congratulating me because of the illness side of my raffle - they outweigh the nasty side."

Mrs McLaren has spent £4,000 advertising and running her raffle, which features £100 tickets.

She said: "Some people send some fabulous messages, thanking me for raising awareness about Hughes. But I have had some that have been horrible. They have called me a stealing bitch, a robbing bitch. Some were so bad I've cried my eyes out."

Mrs McLaren, a former business analyst, wrote back to some cynics explaining her efforts and one critic apologised. She said: "The abuse is something I have to bear because it is one of those things. It really opens your eyes because you come across a lot of diverse people."

If all Mrs McLaren's tickets sell on her web site, www.barnfree.net, she estimates she will get about £700,000 for the barn and be able to pay the costs of running the raffle. They include about £30,000 in stamp duty, £51,000 for automated payment and bank charges, £32,000 for the web site designers and £17,000 for the Hughes Syndrome Foundation and solicitors' fees.

Antony Robbins, head of communications for the watchdog Charity Commission, said people attempting a fund-raising scheme should seek advice from the cause they hoped to support.

He said: "If the campaign is going to attract a lot of publicity, they might want to think about giving a private telephone number out. It may be best to pool your efforts with a local branch of the charity who have some experience with fund-raising and know the pitfalls.

"A web site to take donations might be best because an abusive email is different to a nasty telephone call when you are having supper with your family. Call the charity and see what it recommends. If you are going to set up an email account, be prepared to take the rough with the smooth - people do respond generously in this country but there are always the ones who fancy having a laugh when staggering out of the pub."