Stop ECG
It's not very often that I feel compelled to add flashing banners to my websites/blogs but as of this week, this is a campaign that's close to my heart.
I returned home from a lovely weekend in Barcelona to find an invoice waiting on my doorstep for around 900 Euros (£700 or so). The invoice claimed that I had signed up to a worthless piece of advertising in the European City Guide and the money was now outstanding. Now, as far as I'm (and about 300,000 other people and counting) are concerned I never once signed up for advertising space in this junk of a directory. However, I vaguely remember sending off a form asking me to update my details for a European business scheme - but I get those sort of requests all the time for my Photography business so it was nothing out of the ordinary.
I'm feeling particularly stupid this week, especially as I'm normally the one condoning individuals for falling for junk mail and spam. However, the sheer scale of this scam and the fact that it's gaining coverage by the likes of BBC Radio 4, Watchdog and The Office of Fair Trading has given me the reassurance that I'm certainly not alone nor ridiculously gullible.
So, what can I expect to happen? After hours researching this malicious company I now have a good idea of what I can expect to receive including intimidating court and baliff warnings as well as death threats...nice. Apparently it could go on for three years. Luckily with the help of Google I've been able to reassure myself that these will merely be intimidating tactics rather than have any legal weight behind them. The solution will be to stand firm and not be intimidated by these cowboyish bullies. I have an archive folder and I'm not afraid to use it.
If you're reading this after realising you've fallen victim yourself, you're not alone.
Here are a couple of great resources to find out more. These also include in-depth advice on how to deal with threats from the ECG:
http://www.richardcorbett.org.uk/stopecg/
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2005/01/30/story1947.asp
http://members.aol.com/ActionECG/MainPage.html
I'll add more links as I find them, and will also be keeping you up to date with the correspondance I receive.
I returned home from a lovely weekend in Barcelona to find an invoice waiting on my doorstep for around 900 Euros (£700 or so). The invoice claimed that I had signed up to a worthless piece of advertising in the European City Guide and the money was now outstanding. Now, as far as I'm (and about 300,000 other people and counting) are concerned I never once signed up for advertising space in this junk of a directory. However, I vaguely remember sending off a form asking me to update my details for a European business scheme - but I get those sort of requests all the time for my Photography business so it was nothing out of the ordinary.
I'm feeling particularly stupid this week, especially as I'm normally the one condoning individuals for falling for junk mail and spam. However, the sheer scale of this scam and the fact that it's gaining coverage by the likes of BBC Radio 4, Watchdog and The Office of Fair Trading has given me the reassurance that I'm certainly not alone nor ridiculously gullible.
So, what can I expect to happen? After hours researching this malicious company I now have a good idea of what I can expect to receive including intimidating court and baliff warnings as well as death threats...nice. Apparently it could go on for three years. Luckily with the help of Google I've been able to reassure myself that these will merely be intimidating tactics rather than have any legal weight behind them. The solution will be to stand firm and not be intimidated by these cowboyish bullies. I have an archive folder and I'm not afraid to use it.
If you're reading this after realising you've fallen victim yourself, you're not alone.
Here are a couple of great resources to find out more. These also include in-depth advice on how to deal with threats from the ECG:
http://www.richardcorbett.org.uk/stopecg/
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2005/01/30/story1947.asp
http://members.aol.com/ActionECG/MainPage.html
I'll add more links as I find them, and will also be keeping you up to date with the correspondance I receive.
posted by Emma Cake at
15:24
1 Comments:
I consider myself to be a fairly switched-on individual - however I too returned a form which asked kindly for my "co-operation" in updating some information held about my company. Not noticing any indication of a cost I too was pretty shocked to get THE invoice.
These forms are clearly designed to scam people. Think about it - Statistically speaking if enough forms are sent out they are bound to scam some poor unsuspecting sod, even the cleverest, most street-wise of people will get the odd busy off-day or moment of low concentration.
The trick is of course to simply laugh off each ridiculous request for payment as just that "ridiculous”.
Another good web-site for your list is:- www.simonbusuttil.eu , Simon Busuttil is an MEP who has been tasked with trying tackle European-wide directory scams.
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