[UK] Evesham Technology slapped on wrist by ASA for spamming

(Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) wrote in
:

The stupid thing is that until 2003 Evesham DID HAVE a confirmed opt-in
list; indeed, as a customer whose workplace has bought many hundred PCs
from the company, I as an individual was happy to be enrolled on that
list.

Evesham used to have a good reputation. Many people did much business with
them. Those people were happy to recommend Evesham to others, they had a
great word of mouth sales force.

[snip]

I have told our purchasing department that they should not consider
routing any more orders to Evesham.

Lots of people have taken the boulder pledge.

Cc'ed for information to various Evesham personnel.

Can I ask what their replies were?

In article 47,
Morely Dotes wrote:
Bull****. The stuff coming through the Post is delivered at the
*senders'* expense.

And all those AOL etc CD's and the junk mail that people don't put
in the recycling bins (only 17.5% of waste in LB Richmond is
recycled and we are reputedly better than most) gets taken away at
the recipients expense - in our case ending up in landfill in
Bedfordshire (disposal cost about £20/ton IIRC). The argument that
junk snail mail is OK because it costs the recipients nothing is
fallacious.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

Edwin Petree wrote:

(Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) wrote in
:

snip

I have told our purchasing department that they should not consider
routing any more orders to Evesham.


Lots of people have taken the boulder pledge.

A relative rang me out of the blue yesterday, asking for advice on a
computer purchase. On his picklist were a Dell and an Evesham. The first
step in the conversation was dropping Evesham...

--
Jack.

In article , Jack wrote:
A relative rang me out of the blue yesterday, asking for advice
on a computer purchase. On his picklist were a Dell and an
Evesham. The first step in the conversation was dropping Evesham...
^^^^^^^^^^

Please remind me not to employ you as a consultant. When I ask
someone whether I should buy a or b I want them to recommend whatever
is best, not the one that fits in with their own biases. If on
examination both were more or less the same, then wider factors may
be relevant.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

In article , Tony Bryer
wrote:

Please remind me not to employ you as a consultant. When I ask
someone whether I should buy a or b I want them to recommend whatever
is best, not the one that fits in with their own biases.

I would appreciate being told that one supplier is likely to go out of
business and therefore offer no backup / support. But then I have been
biased against that shower since the "laughing policeman" incidents a few
years ago.

--
AJL Electronics (G6FGO) Ltd : Satellite and TV aerial systems
http://www.classicmicrocars.co.uk : http://www.ajlelectronics.co.uk

In article , Andy Luckman
(AJL Electronics) wrote:
I would appreciate being told that one supplier is likely to
go out of business and therefore offer no backup / support.

ISTM that all the evidence would appear to suggest that the
worse the reputation of the firm the longer it is likely to be
in business. Watford and Mesh have been around for ages; Dan,
who had an exemplary record for customer service, are now but a
memory.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

Tony Bryer wrote:
In article , Jack wrote:

A relative rang me out of the blue yesterday, asking for advice on
a computer purchase. On his picklist were a Dell and an Evesham.
The first step in the conversation was dropping Evesham...

^^^^^^^^^^

Please remind me not to employ you as a consultant. When I ask
someone whether I should buy a or b I want them to recommend whatever
is best, not the one that fits in with their own biases. If on
examination both were more or less the same, then wider factors may
be relevant.

Well, I simplified things a bit - the *first* step was asking the guy
what he was planning to use the thing for, of course.

My recommendation was based on the prediction that they may well be
going broke. They are laying-off loads of staff, and resorting to
desperate marketing measures. Anyhoo, refusing to buy stuff from
spammers is not just a personal preference - it's an intelligent
risk-avoidance measure. I certainly wouldn't trust them myself, so I'm
certainly not going to recommend them to a relative.

I don't offer consultancy services to the general public, BTW, so you're
in no danger of hiring me accidentally.

--
jack.

In article , Sonia
writes
On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 21:31:17 +0000, Hammond Organ
wrote:

In article , Malev
writes
On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 20:43:28 -0000, Anthony Edwards
wrote:
Indeed yes, I also today received three copies of the Unsolicited
Commercial Email in question, sent to email addresses two of which
were clearly harvested from Usenet (albeit it would seem, based on
the email addresses used, several years ago).

Got 2 myself this afternoon.
Harvested from an email adress I only used for a fortnight on Usenet in July
2000

Looks like the layoffs mentioned in

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/51/34764.html

didn't work.

I've always wondered what possessed the former MD, Richard Austin, to
step aside and hand control of the company over to the utter halfwit
who runs it nowadays.

I'd give them until the end of this financial year.

Quote from the above article is quite revealing:-

She told The Register: "The company is restructuring to pursue a policy
of an aggressive marketing strategy. We deeply regret that some posts
have become redundant."

Translation:-

"We are losing money. We cannot afford normal advertising so we will
spam like there is no tomorrow - in case there is no tomorrow."

I presume it is support staff that have had the push.
--
Les Desser
(The Reply-to address IS correct - hope Swen ignores it))

Uncle StoatWarbler wrote:

Evesham has had months to stop their spamming. Evesham doesn't care,
obviously; Evesham has knowingly and deliberately chosen to use theft and
trespass to augment their advertising budget, and has *lost* business as a
result.

Ok, I hate spam, but isn't the above (and this thread in general) a
bit melodramatic?

There is a very strong correlation between established companies starting
to use spam and them going out of business.

The only question is whether the spamming is desparation tactics while
circling the drain, or the catalyst for failure.

I don't doubt it and I for one would avoid doing business with a
company which resorts to such tactics, which is probably more
effective that writing to the ASA, IC, Santa Claus, wishing God
Almighty hail brimstone upon their unethical spamming heads or similar
such reaction to what is merely a extra bytes in your inbox.


--
iv Paul iv

(Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) wrote:

At the end of the day it's the modern equivalent of the junk mail
which has been dropping through our letter boxes for decades. I
welcome SPAM no more than the mailings from readers digest no more but
I wouldn't call either "theft and trespass".

You seem to have missed the fact that junk [snail] mail is delivered at
the sender's expense, whereas junk e-mail costs the RECIPIENT time and
resources (such as bandwidth, which might have a finite cost) to receive.

They are not comparable; as such, sending me junk e-mail IS stealing
bandwidth (and hence on-line time, and hence telephony charges) from me.

The cost of which you have almost certainly exceeded many times over
in your response and contributions to this thread alone.

That's without considering the cost of your own time which, I presume,
has *some* value.

--
iv Paul iv