Name And Shame! Which?

MSE_Martin

NAME AND SHAME! WHICH?

I thought long and hard about this, but there's no way round it. In my hand's a 'Which? £300,000 Double Fortune Draw', the type of shoddy marketing that gives companies a bad name.

For Which? to be doing it is shameful. I've huge respect for Consumers Association. It leads great campaigns, forces change and is a 'Super Consumer' in the Courts yet this has now been rebranded to Which? as well, so it's tarnished too. Hopefully some negative publicity will make it think.

Someone has to watch the Watchdog, so i'd like to know your thoughts?

Update Note. The Which? Response

Please see further on in this discussion - here - for Which's repsonse.

webmasterpolo

I agree it makes them look a bit dodgy, l'm a member of Which and l did sign up for all these compeitions when l joined...just for the hell of it really...never heard anything. I think customers would rather just have the members only competitions to win best buys etc as these are marketed in a professional way. Then use these compeittions as incentives for new customers to join and in on the action.

trafalgar_2

Has it been raised with 'Which' themselves Martin
is so what response was given,please

Raggie

MSE_Martin wrote:

In my hand is a 'Which? £300,000 Double Fortune Draw', the type of shoddy marketing that gives companies a bad name. For Which? to be doing it is shameful, worse still now the campaigning arm, The Consumers' Association, has rebranded to Which?, tarring it with the same brush. .

But lets get down to the basics.. are you going for the lump sum.. or £x per year for life... :-)

I assume they still do that... been years since they wrote to me.. ;-)

sra

MSE_Martin wrote:

I thought long and hard about this, but there's no way round it.

In my hand is a 'Which? £300,000 Double Fortune Draw', the type of shoddy marketing that gives companies a bad name. For Which? to be doing it is shameful,

I agree 100%

My opinion of the goes down a little more every time I receive their mail through the post.

When you consider the work they do, I don't usderstand why they think marketing that way is a good idea.

IvanOpinion

It took me ages to get off the Readers Digest direct mailings simply because good old Tom Champagne wanted to send me personal messages offering me large sums of money and wonderful prizes. Tom has not managed to find us since our last house move ......

I would hate to see 'Which?' following this tacky marketing route ... if I have won a prize just send me the damned thing don't make me waste paper, time money and effort into claiming it.

Ivan

Stanfordlad

Which is also currently publishing an advert which reads "FREE PC" in very large letters - that is until you look closely at the small print inbetween the words FREE and PC. It reads something like "guide to buying a".
This is just the sort of sharp practice the Consumers Association used to fight on our behalf.

ssm_3

Dont know how I should react to this thread...

But one thing I did was to subscribe to Which magazines and scooped the free gifts the Mousepad with Radio and a digital camera... They all arrived promptly within a week and then cancelled the subscription on the same day... :cool:

MiM

I couldn't agree more with Martin and have always found the way Which markets itself to be in conflict with its stated aims.

But I have another problem with them. When they do product reviews they simply take a small and what appears to be a fairly random sample of products. How do we know these are the best ones?

I prefer to trust some of the wise heads on MSE before making any big purchase.

kingofherts

I too got the mail and there is no obligation to buy anything from which so why is this any different from any other organisation that uses direct mail as a way to promote its services (in this case an optional free trial to the which magazine).

This is a shameful abuse of your position Martin and i would like to know on what foundations you are making this name and shame statement to 200,000 people.

trafalgar_2

MiM wrote:

But I have another problem with them. When they do product reviews they simply take a small and what appears to be a fairly random sample of products. How do we know these are the best ones?

surely they can't be expected to test every product ...............it's random for that reason and the best buys are the 'best buys' of that selection..........aren't they