Warning

[Alan Cooper]

It costs £35 to register your company to comply with the data protection act, but unless you are passing on your customer liststo other companies
you don’t need to register. Yet another scam to extract our hard earned pennies…

[John Singh]

Crying out loud! when will all this stuff stop!

Why can’t this scum go out and do a good days work like everybody else?

Why isn’t the Government alerting us to this low life and their tactics

John

[Dave Standen]

Hi All
Hi John – Government alert us to low life tactics? – where do you think the Chancellor gets his ideas on collection activities! Don’t tell me you’re a fan of paying more taxes and stuff. The government is the worst low life in collection techniques! Others are following their example! At least with the ‘cons’ you can ignore them – try ignoring Gordon Browns mob!
Regards
Dave Standen

[John Singh]

Nice one Dave 😆 😆 😆 😆

[Kevin.Beck]

I had the same about 3 months ago.

DPA
Ferrars House
94 Ferrars Rd.
Sheffield
S9 1RY

looked very offical.

but there was no phone number to be found in the document/letter.

[Dave Standen]

Hi Folks
Has anyone had the letters or emails form Nigeria? Those that have will know what I refer to.
Regards
Dave Standen

[Tim Painter]

up the Revolution Dave! (:)

I’m soon going to seek asylum elsewhere if my Government keeps persecuting me ………

Tim.

[Carrie Brown]

Received one this morning aswell, put it straight in the bin …… they must be spamming signmakers??? Ive had about three in the last 12 months 🙄

I know Trading Standards or someone ask you to forward it to them for prosecution purposes??

[Carrie Brown]

Dave,

I get about 4 a day at present of those blo*dy emails from Nigeria to offer me money, I have even sent the emails to hotmail etc to their spam dept … but everyone single one I get has a different address. Its sooooo annoying!!!!!! (hot) I dont think there is anyway of stopping them either???

[Simon Clayton]

So what i have done is post it back, in their envelope without a stamp…hopefully they will think a cheque is inside and pay the excess postage 😆
Oh i also put a load of blank a4 paper to make it a bit weightier

[signdevil]

That scam has been doing the rounds for quite some time now and was heavily exposed in the press some months back. The reason they do it is because some people are daft enough to actually post off the cheque !!!!

[John Childs]

SimonC….

Sorry, but you’re just not trying hard enough.

With return envelopes you should just tape them to a small parcel containing a house brick. Once they have paid the postage on few of those they will stop and think a bit harder.

😀

[Nigel Fraser]

….couldn’t agree more, these people are scum of the earth as far as I’m concerned. They deserve anything that they get thrown back at them (especially if it’s a housebrick 😆 ) It’s just one more agrevation that small business (well any business for that matter) really don’t need.
Unfortunately I think they will be around for the forseeable as long as there are people daft enough to send them cash anyway.

Nigel

….wonder what the 1st class postage is on a brick….must be about £5 i guess 🙂

[Doug Edwards]

re the scam emails from nigeria, check this site out for a good laugh http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/

[Phill Fenton]

Another one to beware of is the phonographic society (or something like that). They send you an official looking form to fill in in which you are supoposed to answer questions like “how many employees on the premises?” “How many customers visit?”.. and so on.

The gist of it is, if you play any music at work you are obliged to send them 90 pounds (or thereabouts) to be granted a license to continue having background music on in the work place!!

On a similar theme – I don’t know if this is co-incidence or not, but since I mailed back a junk fax in an unstamped envelope (complete with a message of abuse from me) I have had no further faxes of this type (This was the one where if you no longer wish to receive faxes – please fax this message back and we’ll take you off our mailing list – of course it’s a premium rate number).

These Junk mail fax and mail shot companies really should be banned. The problem is the phone companies and postal service happily encourage it as it’s a big source of revenue.

And finaly. Last week I gained immense satisfaction from a telephone conversation that went as follows:- (Regular readers will recognise the call)

Caller – Can I speak to the person in charge of your IT department?

Me – That’ll be me then!

Caller – I’m sorry to bother you sir but I’m calling from a company that specialise in registering internet website addresses. This morning we recieved an application to register the name “The right signs.com”…

Me – Well they can’t do that – so f*ck off!! (then I slammed the phone down)

Honestly – this is exactly how the conversation went – I just wish I could have heard and seen his reaction. 😆 😆

[Simon Clayton]

Phil…That’s made my day!
I’ve had a drink or two (drink1) and your post has brought tear to my eyes (spin) …keep up the good work

Simon

[Kevin Flowers]

Phil
i had exactly the same problem with junk faxes, phone number only 1 month old at the new workshop, yet morning noon and night junk faxes pouring through. Got in touch with B.T who did list me with a special service but could not guarantee any positive results, so when the next fax come through phoned up the company being promoted and gave them some abuse, by the second time of doing this recieved a phone call stating that my number would be removed from thier lists. It still makes you wonder how they get these numbers inthe first month of trading in the workshop i have had calls from charities, health companies, insurance companies and every phone directory going.

If i had as many customers calling i wouldn’t beable to keep up with the work.

Kevin

[John Singh]

Well I got my Data Letter this morning

Typical brown window envelope saying on it
THIS IS NOT A CIRCULAR Important documents enclosed.

Looks like a letter from the Inland Revenue

Quite intimidating really

It seems they want quite a bit of information but they fail to give their information
Just the address to send your cheque too !!! 😆 😆

So we’ve already had one address for the DPA in Sheffield

My one is:

DPEA
Sparth House
49 Heath Street
Rochdale
OL11 4HF

So just how many of these DPA offices are there?

John

[john6512]

The rules regarding the data protection act 1998 are different to the first act, and more people are caught in the requirements to register. There were many scams around a couple of years ago in the medical and dental sector – obviosuly they’ve moved on. If enough people complain there should be a could reason for criminal prosecution along the lines of obtaining money by deception.

For reference their url is http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/.

We thought we were exempt, but becuase we hold client information on computers for mailing and marketing use we were not.

I also think a mass brink canpain marked return to sender – would be rather good fun!!

[George Zerbino]

Got mine from Rochdale this morning.

I see what you mean by intimidating, specially with the “justice” logo printed on the form.

Perhaps I ought to complete it and send them payment….NOT!

[Chris Wool]

yep got mine this morning must be up to S in list as its to Mr Sticker
Rochdale this one i will give it to the police when they pic some stuf up latter

chris

[fluidedge]

Thought I was missing out here…

Then this morning the very letter from the ‘Data Protection Agency’ in Rochdale.

Sparth House
49 Heath Street
Rochdale
OL11 4HF

Now I’m mad.

I suggest a scouting mission by our nearest member to make sure the office is manned and not just a mailing address, and then based on the intelligence a few of us can meet up to enter their offices one day and explain to them (in a polite and non-violent way) the error of their ways.

[jon vital]

Just got one on Friday. Wrote something rude on it and sent it back. They can pay the postage.

A lot of people do fall for this though. There was a programme on BBC2 last year about a guy who runs similar scams. It showed him opening his mail. He had a wodge of cheques about 3 inches thick by the time he’d finished.

[Phill Fenton]

I got mine this morning – same address (Sparth House).

Did the same as John and have sent back an insulting mesage in their brown (not pre- paid) envelope, but didn’t bother with a stamp.

Another word of warning though. I recently replied to an email (Nigerian scam) with an insulting message telling them to stop bothering me. Since then the amount of junk email I receive has trebled!! Make sure if you are going to reply to these that they don’t know who you are otherwise they will just plague you 🙄 🙄