The Perfume Shop-Illegal Scam

idontknowmyname

A few months ago I applied for a position of sales assistant that was advertised on www.jobs.ie for The Perfume Shop. I didn’t hear anything from them so presumed they weren’t interested, then about month later I started receiving text messages advertising their products. I was so angry as my CV information must be used for the sole purpose of employment only! The Data Protection Act says that information cannot be used for anything else other than its purpose unless the relevant people have permission. I never allowed this man to misuse my information like he has. :mad:

I emailed www.jobs.ie just before Xmas and got no answer so I then emailed The Perfume Shop headquarters in the UK. They said that it was not their company who was doing this and that they had received other complaints about this matter. When the Perfume Shop UK wanted to enter Ireland it found that an Irish company had already taken the name so the real company had to use another name.

After Xmas I happened to be browsing through Jobs.ie when I came across 4 adverts the same as I had replied to. They all had different positions like nail technician, beautician, sales people etc. The ad always says it wants a one page CV and not to call the mobile number given. I was infuriated so I emailed jobs.ie an angry letter telling them about how they were letting this guy scam the public. :mad:

The Director of Jobs.ie Vinnie Quinn called me and said that they’d received complaints about this guy before and that they had warned him to stop. If so, then why did they still let him advertise? Vinnie also told me that one woman was receiving messages every 20 minutes; I got away lightly with once a week. He said that he’d talk to the guy again and tell him that he was breaching the Data Protection Act; he’d also tell the guy to remove my mobile number from the database.

But low and behold, yesterday I received this:

“Free Valentines chocolates with womens and mens perfumes over €30 over 500 perfume prices reduced for Valentines’s Day. The perfume shop unsub txt NO to 0879917881

First of all I never subscribed and if I was to txt NO would he start sending me junk mail? How am I to know, it may also confirm my number and send me even more txt messages. The advertisement said it was The Perfume Shop on the 1st floor of Stephens Green Shopping Centre :mad:

If I can get in touch with anyone else who has been the victim of this we can have a stronger case in helping to prosecute this person. I will be contacting the relevant authorities on Monday and the more people we have the better. So if you have been unfortunate to experience this or you know someone who has get them to contact me.

Kobie

Send a mail to ComReg. There's currently two companies being prosecuted for exactly this.

fraggel

Yeah i'm in the same position, Applied for a web design job for them.

Don't know if there's much we can do about it though or even if it's worth it.

P.M. me if you want to contact me.

joe.

Got a message myself. Applied for job also. Can't remember which. :mad:

MadsL

Send a mail to ComReg.

Try www.dataprotection.ie too and make a complaint.

Orion

idontknowmyname wrote:

But low and behold, yesterday I received this:

“Free Valentines chocolates with womens and mens perfumes over €30 over 500 perfume prices reduced for Valentines’s Day. The perfume shop unsub txt NO to 0879917881

First of all I never subscribed and if I was to txt NO would he start sending me junk mail? How am I to know, it may also confirm my number and send me even more txt messages.

Personally I'd send the NO msg to that text number but first I'd make sure that my phone settings were set to save the msg to my sent items. Let's face it - you're getting the rubbish anyway.Then the next time I got a spam from the ba$tard I'd get straight onto ComReg. The take a very strict line on this and would quite happily prosecute.

Any reputable company will remove you from their list - I used to get weekly crap from Meteor (the network I'm on) until I called them and told them to stop -they did - immediately!

The fact that it's an opt-out spam is illegal in Ireland iirc - all this crap must be opt-in.

D!ve^Bomb!

Tom McKeagney and the advertisement said it was The Perfume Shop on the 1st floor of Stephens Green Shopping Centre

the next time you're in stephens green be sure to pay tom a visit.. you might get lucky, he might be there...

0879917881

Why not try and report him to vodafone? they might do something?

either that or spam his phone, ring it at all hours of the night etc

aligator_am

Yeah I'm getting this crap aswel, it didn't bother me initially but now I've had it up to the gills, think I might have to contact comreg meself, may well deter some other shams trying the same ploy.

idontknowmyname

when u try to send a message it says it cant send it. I tried ringing the number but its constantly engaged. I'm gonna ring the Perfume Shop and go crazy at him, then i will be reporting him to ComReg and as many authorities that I can in order to make him pay for violating my rights

stevenmu

Kobie wrote:

Send a mail to ComReg. There's currently two companies being prosecuted for exactly this.

The news mentioned that they could each be fined up to €3000 per message sent. I wonder if any of that goes to the person recieving the messages,I have been thinking about applying for a few new jobs

I had the same problem and iirc... I gave the mobile no. to Eircom, who gave me their registered phone no. I called them and they stopped.

idontknowmyname

I just sent a nice long complaint to the Data Protection Commissioner- hopefully they'll be able to do something. yeah its €3000 fine per message. I kept the last one i was sent. I have called the Perfume Shop loads of time and this guy always seems to be conveniently never there, apparently he's at a funeral today.

http://www.dataprotection.ie/images/SPAMguide.pdf