Tuesday, August 01, 2006

It's the Wrong Thing To Do!

The SABC propaganda machine keeps reminding us that paying our TV licenses is "the right thing to do", but they fail to mention that the contact details provided to them by the unsuspecting license holder are then made available to marketing companies.
My personal opinion is that marketing companies who send me junk on my cell phone or via email are the scum of the earth. Recently I received one such message sent on behalf of Nedbank, offering me a personal loan of up to R100 000. All I had to do was call 0860-103-582.
So I called them, and they gave me the number of the "marketing company" called ETL Solutions 011-293-9259. Another call centre. Why am I not surprised?
I was told by the operator that they get personal details from "legal sources" including the TV License information. I requested a letter of apology, and was put in touch with Barry Cowden at 011-467-2984. Being the Managing Director, he was naturally unavailable to talk to me, so I sent him an SMS on 082-491-7753.
I also requested a letter of apology from Nedbank, and pointed out to them that they are breaking the law by sending me unsolicited electronic communications. It seems that they are good a "making [the wrong] things happen". The question I have is: would you really want to take out a loan from a company that resorts to dubious marketing techniques and invasion of privacy? Can you really trust them? I don't think so.

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