Classic misrepresentation

[Brian Turner]

Here's a copy e-mail I received a few weeks ago:

FAO Britecorp Marketing Team:

I am writing to introduce our site designed for the NHS, named above. It's users enjoy the best of lifestyle, medical, business and recruitment information.

The Business Resources section has become a useful tool for senior management and buyers in the medical sector to source information on subjects outside of their expertise.

We are in the process of creating a new category under the IT and Telecoms heading for 'Web Accessibility'. This topic is of crucial important to the NHS, as many of the sector's websites short very fall of the requirements.

I wish to discuss the possibility of Britecorp having a presence on our site, under this new section, backed by an article on the subject of W3C, which will also be posted onto the site. We ideally require one consultancy in each UK county.

If a member of the marketing team drops me a line, I will explain in greater detail how our site benefits the healthcare sector. In the meantime, I have attached a recent report regarding GP practice websites, which outlines the need for private internet expertise to work with the sector.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Regards,
PEte Milner
Business Editor

ESSENTIAL MEDIA LTD
Alexandra House, 2 Well Lane, Chapel Allerton, Leeds, LS7 4PQ
Tel: 0113 2369111 Fax: 0113 266 4088

Sounds very good, doesn't it? Being contacted by a group working closely with the NHS, offering ouselves the ability to represent ourselves to all regional healthcare practices - surely a good thing?

What the e-mail doesn't state - and this is actually rather clever - is that the e-mail was actually trying to sell a listing on their online directory - no direct search engine access to the diretory pages, and no active spiderable links.

So how much is a non-spiderable directory listing worth on what is effectively a dead site - PR0 and an Alexa rating of nearly 500,00?

What really interested myself was the sales approach here - create a misleading impression of what you are getting involved with, and then ensure the potential victim ends up on the phone - which is a more favoured method of high-pressure sales.

However - that wasn't the end of it.

I never contacted them - but I did love the disclaimed at the bottom of the e-mail. It effectively tries to make plain that the company isn't at all responsible or accountable for trying to scam you, and that if you claim the e-mail is a scam, they'll claim it wasn't sent by their authorised staff or with company consent, and that if it was, it's probably been doctored by you anyway - and that you are breaking their copyright restrictions by copying it anyway!.

What a bunch of tossers.

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Sorry em-online, but this was addressed specifically to britecorp, and made specific recommendations for encouraging the purchase of a specific company service. Therefore you are most definitely liable, responsible, and held up to the world for public ridicule of a dishonest method of soliciting business.

[revsorg]

Someone I know on another forum PM'd me to ask what I had to do with these people.

The confusion arose because we had written an article on accessibility for the last paper-based version of their magazine before they became on-line only. They had circulated my article by email as an example of the sort of contributions they would like for their website and it had our company name on it.

The chap on the other forum had already concluded that they didn't want to buy a listing because they wanted to see how long the new website kept running before spending their money. But they wanted to know what my connection was, and did I know my article was being circulated.

The whole episode reinforced a lot of things I've learned along the way, that people are very willing to infer bad things when they have little information, and that you can have your finger in a lot of pies, but you've got to keep ALL your fingers clean, because people remember things, and they talk to each other

[Brian Turner]

Were you approached by the company in the same manner, or had you already had other dealings with them?

[revsorg]

They approached me to write an article for their magazine, which I did. I think this was before they started trying to sell advertising on their website.

[bumfluff]

ohhhhhhhhhhh..... you're gonna be SO sued for posting that email here