Category: Spam

Are Christmas Hampers A Good Deal?

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It’s only September but emails are turning up offering Christmas Hampers.

There has been a lot of publicity in recent years about how the contents of a typical store hamper can be bought much cheaper separately so it’s more difficult than previously for the big supermarkets in particular to get away with exorbitant prices.

Money Supermarket looked at a Waitrose Cracker Hamper and found

– Italia Collezione Prosecco Brut 750ml (Waitrose.com £11.99)
– The Whale Caller Sauvignon Blanc/Colombard 75cl (Waitrose.com £5.49)
– The Whale Caller Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon 75cl (Waitrose.com £5.49)
– Atkins & Potts Milk Chocolate Dipper 220g (Atkins and Potts £2.95)
– Buiteman Parmigiano Reggiano Biscuits 75g (Amazon.co.uk £11.51)
– Linden Lady Handmade Luxury Chocolates x 15 (Waitrose.com £6.99)
– Linden Lady Handmade Toasted Coconut Marshmallows 125g (Yourhamper.com £3.49)
– Maxwell & Franks Christmas Pudding with Cider 454g (Yourhamper.com £3.74)
– Olives Et Al Chipotle Smoky Chilli Nuts 150g (Olives Et Al £4.00)
– The Original Cake Company Round Top Iced Fruit Cake (Original Cake Company Iced luxury Christmas slab £4.65).
– 6 Waitrose All Butter Mince Pies (Waitrose.com £2.50)

Total cost bought separately £59.09 or £100 as a Waitrose hamper. That was in 2013 and things have improved since then.

The makers of hampers point out that you also get the hamper and the benefit of someone having chosen the items and packed them for you. However, the actual hampers are quite cheap on Amazon so you can get your own.

The days of huge sales of hampers at Christmas seems to have gone, especially since the largest  of the monthly savings hamper clubs Farepak went bust 4 years ago.

Are Hampers worth the money?

It depends on how much you like the actual hamper box it comes in and how much you like someone picking the items on your behalf.

Basically it’s usually much cheaper to buy the items separately and if you want a hamper then buy a hamper on Amazon or EBay and fil it yourself.

Don’t be taken in by the emails – check the cost of the contents for yourself.

Do leave a comment on this post – click on the post title then scroll down to leave your comment

What Are Those Time-Wasters Up To?

clock-359985_640So, what rubbish emails and calls have there been to Brooklands Radio station in the last few days?

Web Soul Services want to send out one million Marketing emails on our behalf for just £200. No wonder there’s so much appalling rubbish clogging up the Internet.

A card payment service offer, but the email ifs from interestingmail.biz meaning it’s just a Marketing company seeking leads to sell.

Apparently we have won 1,000,000 Euros in a Spanish sweepstake that we didn’t enter. We just have to send our details to their promotions manager.  I don’t think so.

A company called Fuddlewords tells us “Congratulations. You have been accepted” then complains that we haven’t started using their software yet and there is $10,000 in out trading account waiting for us. Oh look – there’s a whole herd of flying pigs.

Westport Investments want us to invest in the Cardiff student village. It’s just a Marketing company looking for leads to sell.

These people just waste our time and clog up the Internet with rubbish.

Be Wary of Web Developers and SEO Experts in Asia

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There are increasing numbers of emails flooding the UK from web developers, SEO experts, Digital Marketeers and similar from India and to a lesser extent from Eastern Europe.

Some of these are reputable businesses offering a quality service, but many are just individuals offering a cheap service. That is fine if they market themselves as individuals but many claim to have wide ranging skills, be part of a large organisation and to have worked with businesses across the globe.

This is the problem – the lies.

If someone has to lie to market themselves then you cannot trust anything they claim.

A fake sales letter is likely to contain some of the following indicators:-

  1. No mention of the name of the business, not even in the sign off
  2. A personal rather than business email address. A Yahoo or Hotmail, Outlook or Gmail address or similar generally means the email is from an individual, not a company
  3. A claim to have all encompassing skills i.e. a list of too many technologies for one business to specialise in.
  4. Grammatical mistakes
  5. The tone of someone desperate for business e.g. offering to beat any price.

Typical emails offering website design, SEO and promotions contain claims on what they can achieve for you

  • Put you at the top of Google page 1 search for your selected keywords
  • Double your customer numbers
  • Bring in any amount of business you want

People will sometimes make these claims without any evidence to back them up, in the hope of getting business but cheats will do this all the more and have more exaggerated claims.

You may choose to take a chance on someone on the other side of the world with no proven skills, but a safer approach is to ignore all such emails and search on the Internet for established businesses  or consultants and look at the work they have done, check any online ratings  and if possible contact their previous customers.

Don’t waste your money.