Being uncharitable
Charities do a wonderful job, in the main.
I like to think that I do my little bit for various organisations, so my conscience is clear.
HOWEVER……..
I do get a little pissed off when a reputable charity spams me.
I received a mail from Signal Communications via Pragmatica asking me to support Childline.
Childline are a wonderful charity, and they do great work. I know a lot about them, because from the age of four, our K8 used to ring them several times a week for some reason.
On the other hand, I don’t know anything about Signal Communications or Pragmatica, and nor do I want to.
They were obviously engaged by Childline to do promotion.
I have three searing objections to this mail.
Firstly, they wrote to an address that I rarely use, though it is commonly used by spammers. I have never heard of them before, so this is an unsolicited mail [i.e. SPAM].
My second objection is that at the bottom of their mail they urge me to “Forward This Mail: To as many of your contacts as possible”. This is again promoting unwanted mail.
My final, but no means least objection is that I have received more than one of these mails to the same email address from the same company.
My message to Signal Communications and Pragmatica: Fuck off, and stop spamming. It is illegal.
My message to Childline: Please be very careful who you ask to do your promotions. [And by the way, you should grammar check you front page!]
I love Spam!!
I do!
Sliced on whole wheat bread with some cheese and mustard !
Today is a good day to be charitable.
Brianf – You are welcome to it. I have about 10,000 of them if you want them, though I never thought of them as being edible….
TT – Towards charities, yes.
Ah, junk. At least the paper version is good for lighting the fire; the e-mail version is nothing but a pain.
Worse for Childline, it now puts them in the same league as all those contemptible fake lotteries and mail-order ‘enlargement’ products…that’s never going to bring them goodwill from possible donors. What are Pragmatica (or whoever) thinking??
… grammar check you front page …
Love it!
Anyway, I’d never resort to those tactics when collecting for The Wife of the Unknown Soldier Trust.
Susan – I have the greatest respect for Childline and can’t believe that they would condone this. I would imagine they entered into an agreement without realising the methods that were to be used. As you say, it will affect their reputation though which is sad.
What the mail was about was the promotion of a book.
All proceeds from the sale of Grabbing the Oyster go to Childline.
THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE DONE!
On a website
Where it can be ignored at will.