I thought that unsolicited Spam was now ILLEGAL in the EU?
As I signed up for Screwfix emails and NOT Bargainbob emails this is probably agaist the law.
I hope Screwfix are aware of this..?
sPoNiX (Not amused)
I use dedicated email addresses and it was the screwfix one.
I have bounced the email to screwfix to look at. It may be them or there third party emailer.
Lawrence
usenet at lklyne dt co dt uk
According to the police, yes; but not according to the Information Commissioner.
Just got another email from Screwfix (I'd not contacted them about this) saying:
We have been made aware this morning (December 23rd) that a number of Screwfix Direct customers have received an email from "Bargain Bob's". This was due to a processing error and we are very sorry that this has happened. Bargain Bob's is related to Screwfix Direct and was set up as a "clearance" web site to sell overstocked and deleted Screwfix Direct products. Again, we apologise for the intrusion of this unexpected and unsolicited e-mail message, which was not intended for you or any other existing Screwfix Direct customers. John Allan Managing Director Screwfix Direct Ltd.
I just got this reply from Screwfix
Dear xxxx
We have been made aware this morning (December 23rd) that a number of Screwfix Direct customers have received an email from "Bargain Bob's". This was due to a processing error and we are very sorry that this has happened.
Bargain Bob's is related to Screwfix Direct and was set up as a "clearance" web site to sell overstocked and deleted Screwfix Direct products. Again, we apologise for the intrusion of this unexpected and unsolicited e-mail message, which was not intended for you or any other existing Screwfix Direct customers.
John Allan Managing Director Screwfix Direct Ltd.
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If you wish to unsubscribe to this service from Screwfix Direct or if you are receiving more than one copy of this email, please click here to unsubscribe.
Mailing Code: E52W15
Contact Details: Screwfix Direct Ltd, Mead Avenue, Houndstone Business Park, Yeovil, BA22 8RT.
FREEPHONE 0500 41 41 41
Bob Eager wrote:
Don't beleive tabloid bullshit. The DPA did not work against the police at Soham, the DPA did not absolve British Gas from its duty of care to the elderly people it cut off and killed. Billains and crooks aren't obeying the law, the police are failing to prosecute them.
The DPA is a necessary act, the police don't agree with it and fail to enforce it and use it as a lame excuse in an attempt to discredit it.
I got the spam from bargin bobs and the 'apology' from screwfix. Both of which are annoying as I unsubscribed from screfix mail list some two weeks ago! I seem to remember a thread about then on this newsgroup where there was an argument that screwfix were spammers. At the time the majority defended them. And now this.... To my mind they are showing their true colours. Very much pro marketing and mass e-mailing.
I also note that the 'apology' from screwfix seemed to go out of its way to plug bargin bobs as a clerance site. Strange clerance site where the prices are higher. Maybe some marketing genius has suggested putting up a cheap looking site will give the impression that the goods are also cheap!
Richard
Hi,
They are also using covert spam tracking techniques in the email too, look in the HTML for something like:
Where *ID* is a unique number that identifies that you have read the email.
cheers, Pete.
Hardly covert. Its a common feature with email marketing used to work out the click-through rate etc.
Notice they are using a using an out-sourced email processing outfit and the unique ID is to the fwdto.com site. Based on this, its possible they get paid based on the click-through rate or something similar and that all URLs get automatically get this added to it. If that's the case, then Screwfix's website may never get passed the ID, nor know the mapping between email address and ID.
Dsmiley pete wrote:
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See also:
cheers, Pete.
The old people told BG to sod off during the summer - they did not die in poverty. I'm sure that most people reading this newsgroup would be complaining if BG informed social services when they decided to change gas suppliers.
That's my reading of it as well. Do the bigwigs who spout from BG etc
*really* think they'd be prosecuted if they told social services someone needed help? Nor do they have to disclose the reason why (non payment of bills etc) they pass on this information. It's only a convenient smokescreen to hide their incompetence. *Their* incompetence - not necessarily that of their staff.
Mr Firth manages to express in two brief paragraphs the sentiment I would gabble over several screens. Many organisations have taken to hiding behind the DPA to excuse their own can't-be-arsedness; a few - and *some* of the oterhwise excellent Boys In Blue fall into this category - have it in for the DPA, and miss no opportunity to badmouth it. "Crime prevention" is a totally legit reason for data retention; the requirement that information be accurate does indeed get in the way of recording *unsourced* gossip, as notoriously used to happen on the PNC (Police National Computer) in the
80s (when the first DPA came into force). Doesn't at all stop you recording allegations, provided they're labelled as such and sourced. I.e. "I hear Stefek screws ducks" is problematic; "Steve F, IMM, and the Screwfix marketing mangler have each on several public occasions alleged they've seen Stefek interfering with ducks in 2002 and 2003" is not. It's notable that of our twenty-something police forces, the Humberside one (whose Chief Constable so memorably walked off the Newsnight set when mildly Paxmanned) is the *only* one which has interpreted the DPA and the follow-up guidance from ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) so paranoically...Stefek, drifting relatively concisely
Not as simple as that. They only saw the wife, who was really not fit enought to talk to them properly. Husband was out for a few minutes.
Dave Plowman wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@argonet.co.uk:
Very true - and the fact that they were not penniless (even if BG knew that) does not mean they didn't need some help of some kind.
mike r
In message , mike ring wrote
You and I are not paying our utility changes in order that the front line staff at BG, and similar companies, become a second tier of social services. In this case the data protection law worked in exactly the way it was drafted and enforced in the past by the regulators - this law has always been ambiguous for the sole purpose of making 'jobs for the boys'.
You and I are not paying our utility changes in order that the front
Well said. I remember in the 1980s the CEO at the newly privatised BT got a roasting in the press because he wouldn't provide free phones to all pensioners. Fortunately he stuck to his guns and phone prices are now much much lower than the ridiculous prices then.
Of course we still all hate BT, but at least we can do it cheaply and on-line now :-)
Didn't this old couple have family or neighbours for chrissake? Maybe they were all too busy Christmas shopping. The DPA is another good old British muddle. As long as we're seen to be doing something, we don't have to bother thinking it through or implementing measures to make it work day to day. It's obviously a slippery slope to store allegations, but one wonders whether the police tried hard enough to get a conviction in one of the earlier charges against Huntley.
But they *actively* contributed to the deaths by cutting off the gas. So it's not a case of asking them to do something - rather not to do it.
In message , Dave Plowman wrote
So it's okay for everyone in the country not to pay their utility bills
- or are you prepared to subsidise those people who have money but choose not to pay the bills? The utility companies are not charities nor social services.
How far does a utility company have to go before cutting someone off - is 10 contacts plus two house visits not enough? In this case you may argue that it should have been a special case but how do front line utilities staff know the difference between this couple and the many thousands of other people who refuse to pay their bills.
Don't pay and still get gas, I'm all for that but I'm not sure that they will piping gas to my property, or anyone elses', for very long..
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