We got an envelope that said "Official Document, 2010 Census". But on the inside, it's a "survey", where you eventually see by question 5 that this is NOT an official US census, but rather a fund-raising letter from the Republican National Committee. WTF?
This IS a US Census year, so it's easy to see why people would be confused. It's just a slimy attempt to deceive recipients into opening a piece of junk mail they would otherwise discard. Is this legal? It's certainly unethical. Do people respect organizations that walk the fine line between legality and criminality by playing these dirty tricks?
Maybe I've just become overly sensitive to unethical behavior, but I keep running into examples of bad-behaving companies and organizations. I find it hard to understand why people behave this way; it certainly does not enhance their reputation and respectability.
I've twice reported companies to the WA State Atty General for unethical business practices in the last year (Microsoft, for retaining my credit card against my will, and SquareSpace for retaining my subscription payment after the point I determined that their service was defective for me). This RNC letter may compel me to send a 3rd complaint.
Earning money is hard - but do businesses really have to resort to tricking their customers to make it? I would love to see stronger laws in place that would penalize companies for acting badly; especially when there is such a big divide between the power of the company vs. the power of the individual.
Here's are my biggest pet peeves of bad behavior:
How about banks that when processing accounts for the evening they pay the largest debit/check first so that if you are short funds then they can charge you multiple overdraft fees in one night instead of the reverse in which case you would only be responsible for one. I reported them to the BBB and moved my daughter's acct to another bank
I got one of the RNC letters, too a couple of months back. I thought is was unethical, deceptive and just plain wrong.
I love your 5 points and especially your last sentencee. We don't have to look any further than Seattle government, King County government and certainly the State government in Olympia to see models of deception. So I think the dems are just as corrupt as the repubs....and I'd love to see a thourough housecleaning. (I'll bet Christine would say, "Let's have a housecleaning, but we need a State Income Tax to do it." )
Just look at the government around you....look at O's State of t he Union address and the Republican response, I might add. Look at AlGore's climate blather (and eminent scientist he is, to be sure..) what one of our high profile, big spending role models does not use a....."model (that) relies on tricking people into paying you for services they don't want, need, or even know they are paying for...." It starts to look as if bad, deceptive and unethical behavior is not only accepted....it is condoned and applauded.
We live in interesting times.......