Unauthorised PR

Astaroth

Not really consumer but certainly a Vent

I am a registered mentor for a website that provides business mentors to new companies. All the mentors work free of charge and the mentoree's dont have to pay for the service but the site does cross sell a few business tools (which mentors dont have to promote or recommend) and gets most of its revenue from advertising - all electronic communications go through their site so gets adverts attached.

They run a small reward thing of a "mentor of the year" which has a cash prize associated, putting your name in lights on the site etc. Most the mentors on the site are business owners and will do a bit of selling of their own services to their mentoree if it is appropriate - it cannot be done as hard sales but a soft sale is allowed by the websites rules. I am an employee and do not represent my employers and therefore think it would be inappropriate to sell products - plus as I work in a regulated industry and I am not licenced to give advice on financial products.

Anyway, got an email from them a while ago saying that I had won the award... great.... dont particularly need the cash and dont do it for monitory reward so asked that they donate the money to charity instead but asked that they didnt make a big thing of it.

Their monthly news letter was sent today... headline news was the fact I had given my winnings to charity :mad: .... looked on their site and they have also done a press release about it (obviously not just about it but it is in the 1st paragraph) :mad: :mad:

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liz_uk

oh bless you !!

Certainly nothing to be angry about - everyone needs there 15 minutes !! and this sounds like yours.. good on you !

Epiphone

Congrats anyway! No use hiding that light under a bushel.

The website sounds interesting, can you give more details? I'm setting up on my own and this sounds good.

webmasterpolo

Did they mention your name in the PR release? If they did check the T+C as it might say they are allowed, if it doesn't you could write to them and complain if you like.

If they included details of your own business in the release then it's very good publicity for you, business owner spends his valuable time helping offers and then donates prize to charity, certainly isn't bad BR :-) Maybe your comapny site should link to the press release...

-Web

mrcow

Astaroth wrote:

Anyway, got an email from them a while ago saying that I had won the award... great....

Well done!

I can understand that your peeved over the publicity, but the damage has been done now (as everyone who's going to read it probably has already). I know you're annoyed, but can you not just chalk it up to incompetence.

btw, it was a really generous thing of you to have done by donating the money. (I would have spent it ).

Astaroth

I am sure Médecins Sans Frontières can put it to much better use than me... paying a months rent or putting it to what evers left of my student loan (need to check one of these days) - not really exciting things to do with it.

The T&Cs did say that they put a note in their newsletter which I didnt mind (obviously have no choice) but it was just the song and dance they made over it going to charity rather to me... but still, as others say, damage done.