Mobile118 wrote on Aug 12
th, 2009 at 7:59pm:
My thoughts on 118 800 is this is a good idea, but just handled very wrongly - I would have done it very different. I have met them and I am sure of their good intension's, but I can guarantee you they never expected this backlash. When I met them over a year ago they were going to contact each user and make sure they wanted to be added.
The general public will never use this brand 118 800 need to rethink. I am not aware of any company that has managed to make a success after such bad publicity. When people wont even opt out because they are paranoid the company will use their details you know you have issues. When they re launch (and they will) expect more emails, web sites and campaigns...
I accept your view of their good motives, but they certainly made some blunders.
edit: after a bit more reading, I changed my mind - see below and the 118800 thread
The obviously deliberate switch from defaulted out to default in but opt-out method has come across with unintended tones unfortunately redolent of blackmail or protection racket, and as I said it is counter-intuitive, and as you imply likely to cause distrust, to have to submit details to have them removed.
What's more, the method, sending the person a text message that someone else wants to contact them, then they can decide whether to call back, could be absolutely vulnerable to exploitation by marketing spammers (especially if they can discover the underlying landline numbers of this service without calling 118800) - for instance, some idiot wants to talk to me about something I wouldn't be interested in, and instead of not being able to reach me at all, can get a message sent to me to ask me to call them at my expense instead of theirs.
And that doesn't seem so unlikely, considering that 118800 has obtained its data from marketing organisations, and it therefore might not be a stunning surprise if it set up reciprocal deals and supplied info back to other corporate customers, especially if cashflow doesn't pick up as fast as in the business plan ...
I don't believe they have 15 million numbers though; there are probably loads of duplicates.