To be pissed off with myself re Bounty - help me take action

[WhatWillSantaBring]

I knew it was coming! I know my rights! I'm a lawyer, FFS, and I still got conned into giving my bastard details to the bounty woman in hopsital following the birth of my DC2.

However, I was sufficiently lucid to clearly think - "it's ok, I have not been asked to consent to marketing". My sketchy knowledge of the DPA is that they are now therefore in breach of it, as my details have been sold to third parties. Anyone want to help me with how I make a complaint to the ICO? Or maybe this is a campaign for Which? (I'm a member)

Or will a complaint do nothing. These bastards must be stopped!

[LottieJenkins]

I spoke to Dr Dan Poulter about this recently and he seemed to think that they shouldn't go on the wards any more!

[RedToothBrush]

Lottie, this was Dan Poulter letter on the subject from last June.

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/208543/PS_H__Letter_to_Trusts_on_Respecting_the_Privacy_and_Dignity_of_Women_on_Postnatal_Wards_-20130624-_accessible.pdf

You'd think that Dan would do more to ENFORCE this if he was serious about it.

[LottieJenkins]

He is my MP and I am very unimpressed with him. I have been trying to contact him after talking to him about something when I met him recently. He has ignored three emails from me!!!

[TerrifiedMothertobe]

Firstly, bounty bags are useless bollocks. I knew nothing of them but was absolutely horrified when they approached me after my first child was born. As soon as she started talking about my chil benefit forms, I kicked her out. Disgusting.

Second time round she didn't get a chance to even open her mouth....!

[BeCool]

I just read your OP and want to hug you - soul sister.

YY they got me too - and I knew they were coming. I was gob smacked as to why I engaged at all - I guess it says something about the state we are in post birth.

I think nobody ever complains because A) they are too busy HAVING JUST HAD A BABY!!! and B) like me you just feel like you did something very daft/stupid, and you "didn't have to", and you just crack on with your life.

[Andcake]

Congratulations on your baby. Bounty are horrible - the mumsnet campaign needs a new lease of life. Maybe we need to find a way to say boycott brands who advertise with them so we hit them where their purse strings are! or pester those brands
I told the woman where to go (which actually meant i missed the child benefit form - another story) so maybe we need a mumsnet thread naming and shaming brands who advertise with them. remember how that brought down the News of the world!

[LaraCroftInDisguise]

"Many mothers and their families value the information and other benefits they receive from parenting clubs or other support organisations. This information often includes accessible information on important subjects such as preventing cot death, car seats and how to access benefits. Bounty has helped with the promotion of Department of Health messages on whooping cough, encouraging pregnant women to have the flu jab and encouraging women to sign up to the NHS Information Service for Parents."

Isn't this information that the NHS can give just give us themselves? Surely they don't need a third party to give us some leaflets....

[winterhat]

I agree LaraCroft. The information could just be given out with no "Bounty Lady" required.

[perfectstorm]

You know, I'm a really assertive person, usually. I've even worked in sales, so know the tricks and the objection-handling schtick. I even have a law degree from a good university, so I know how to argue and what data protection law mandates. I went into hospital knowing about Bounty, disapproving of them, and determined to tell them to eff off.

I folded completely. And when my baby was very poorly and failing to thrive, and was eventually diagnosed with some feeding problems, complaining and my resentment were forgotten about until much later - by which time, it was too late to grumble. So I'll now be down as one of those women who can't have minded, because I never said anything.

So many women do who would never normally, because we are vulnerable for numerous reasons and on many levels, and that is why Bounty don't ask HV to offer the option to women at their first visit, with all funds to the NHS. They know damn well they're going for the jugular at a time most women won't have the wherewithall to tell them to go fuck themselves. And won't complain, because hello? They have a newborn baby to care for and can barely remember the phone does not in fact belong in the fridge (well, okay, maybe that's just me...). And it is that which is so, so deeply offensive.

[Cornybeard]

I think I was very lucky with the Bounty lady we had, wasn't fussed when we didn't want any photos taken and didn't push for details (and we didn't give them either) and was actually quite lovely and I'm very sorry to hear of other people's horrible experiences. Husband took the bag though because we needed another sample pot of Sudocrem, apparently. But these Bounty reps shouldn't be in hospitals at all, they're not there to help new mothers, they're there to make money, plain and simple.

[perfectstorm]

Corney that's nice to hear. I agree they shouldn't be there at all, but it's appalling their pay is commission based at all, let alone commission only. No wonder they are so very aggressive and pushy, on the whole. And when dealing with women straight after childbirth, those tactics are targeted on extremely vulnerable people.

[fluffyraggies]

I was all geared up for this when having DD 4 last month. Been reading MN bounty campaign in the summer. I agree its horrendous that any sales person is allowed to prowl a hospital ward.

Was in the bloody loo when the bounty woman arrived!

Came out of the toilet and was pottering round the bed when DH, who had been sat the whole time with baby, casually mentioned ''some woman wanting our details and something to do with photos''. He'd asked her if it was free (love him :)) been very non-plussed that she was trying to sell something on a labor ward, and sent her packing. He got the pack though. Two of them, in fact

IME bounty pack hasn't changed much in years. A couple of useful 50p/£1/£2 off cupons for cream/nappies, and 2 samples - rest of it is advertising bumph and promises of £10/£20 off - but only on orders for goods worth £100 plus. And a whole leaflet promsing free stuff online - but that all turns out to be cheaply made stuff in America which you have to fork out £10/£20 postage for (and sign up for a lifetime supply of spam emails!!)

Hospital provided perfectly adequate health info. leaflets about baby, sleep, feeding and support links.

[whataboutbob]

I also found bounty pretty rirritating- them getting something out of you,in the guise of it being a treat for you. However I feel a little uncomfortable with some of these posts,lambasting the Bounty women. They are mostly working class women who are probably doing the work for much needed cash. They are unlikely to have the option of much more satisfying work. Or indeed better paid work ( unlike many of the posters on here). Maybe we should remember this before we get on our high horses. And apologies if others have already made this point, I don't have time to read the whole thread.

[FryOneFatManic]

whataboutbob I suggest you read this and other threads and save your sympathy for the new mothers. There are many, many stories of these bounty women displaying very poor, if not offensive, behaviour.

[DinoSnores]

I'm totally with whataboutbob on this. I'm also really uncomfortable lambasting muggers. They are mostly working class who are probably doing the work for much needed cash. They are unlikely to have the option of much more satisfying work. Or indeed better paid work (unlike some of the posters on here). Perhaps we should remember this before we get on our high horses.

[DinoSnores]

Anyway, this is the letter I sent to my MP a few days ago (identifying details removed). I'll let you know if/when I get a reply:

Re: EDM 319 - Marketing on maternity wards [http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2013-14/319 - you can see if your MP has signed as the signatures are below]

I recently discovered I was pregnant again and attended my GP to begin
the referral process to the midwife and my hospital consultant. As part
of this, I received a pile of marketing leaflets in a Bounty pack.

It reminded me this time last year when I was in hospital following the
birth of my second daughter. While sitting on a hospital bed with a
urinary catheter in place, only a sheet covering my bottom half, and
trying to breastfeed my 16 hour old newborn baby, a stranger popped her
head round the curtains.

This stranger wasn't the breastfeeding counsellor coming to help
establish breastfeeding. It wasn't one of the overworked midwives
coming to remove my catheter or check on us after a difficult labour
the night before. It wasn't the paediatrician coming to check my new
daughter following the stillbirth of her elder sister 14 months before.
It wasn't my young son coming to meet his new little sister as visitors
weren't allowed on the ward at that time of the day.

It was a sale representative from Bounty coming to harvest my personal
details to sell to third parties under the pretence of the free gift of
a bag of spam!

I didn't give her my details but there are many vulnerable women who
feel pressured to at a very precious and tender time in their lives.

I was therefore pleased to see that last year you signed EDM 319
condemning these practices.

I'd like to know now what action you have taken since, particularly in
relation to [our local hospital], and what response you have
had from the [hospital] regarding removing 'the Bounty lady' from the wards.

[whataboutbob]

I agree these practices are awful. We should challenge the NHS 's symbiosis with Bounty. Clearly there is something in it for them and that's why they let the reps have the run of the place.
My gripe when i was last on a maternity ward was that there were TVs by all beds. The partner of the woman opposite me watched the football, at top volume. Just after you've given birth, are trying to get some rest, establish breast feeding etc. None of the nurses (who mostly stayed well away form the ward, preferring to congregate around their desk area) saw fit to ask him to turn it down. Clearly the TVs are there because there's money in it for the hospital. It's hard to imagine that being allowed in the early days of the NHS- I like to imagine a stern matron coming along and telling that guy in no uncertain terms to switch the TV off. Again no consideration for the new mothers' needs.

[ExBrightonBell]

er, whataboutbob, so it's ok for poor working class women (people?) to be bad at their job because they are poor and working class with few options? I don't think so! Don't you think that everyone should be respectful and polite when carrying out their job, irrespective of their background?

The Bounty people don't have to behave in the way that many of them do. I am quite happy to lambast the horrible Bounty woman that disturbed me without permission when I was vulnerable and traumatised after my horrific birth, with my ds very poorly in SCBU. She came into my private side room (moved there after being uncontrollably distressed on the main postnatal ward), without asking permission, and actually said "where is your baby?!". What a stupid woman she was. The NHS should have no truck with this organisation who can't control their staff from behaving so unprofessionally. Unfortunately money overrides concern for women's welfare in many NHS trusts.

[SometimesLonely]

DinaShores Thank you for that link. I looked at it and my MP is not in the list. Surprise, surprise. Anyway, I don't vote for him because I don't like him - not because he's Conservative but because just I don't like him. Our previous MP was in the Labour party but I voted for him not his party because he was a b**y good MP, dealing with his constituents as if they were people not just voters.

[RedToothBrush]

Do we feel the same about door to door salesmen who go and visit vulnerable old people?

They are just doing their job...

I'm pretty sure Bounty Ladies know when they are deliberately misleading and when a women says no or when she simply just doesn't know what she's filling in because English isn't her first language or how insensitive she is when she calls a baby ugly etc etc.

It doesn't matter which class you come from or how much you need the money. You still can choose whether to behave in an ethical manner and you damn well know when you break the rules. If you break the rules, then you should be prepared for the consequences.

[winterhat]

Well done DinoSnores

[perfectstorm]

Whataboutbob can you back up the assertion that commission-only, aggressive saleswomen are in general poverty stricken, working-class women? It wasn't my own personal experience with Bounty, and it certainly hasn't been my experience more generally. It also seems unlikely that it will be work undertaken by those on very low incomes because it's solely commission-based, and the erratic nature of those earnings would play merry hell with any tax credits, housing benefits or council tax benefits the employee would be entitled to. So it will primarily attract people who want an additional source of income, but are not benefits-dependent - ie not the poorest.

Can you also explain why you think working class people are likely to be less empathetic, and to have less integrity, than those with more money? Seems a rather unpleasantly snobbish assertion, really.

As for televisions in wards - no, they shouldn't be on that loudly and a midwife should have said something; actually it should IMO be compulsory for headphones to be worn. But there's a clear and apparent benefit to mothers of access to television. Having their personal identity data bullied out of them at an extremely vulnerable time so they can be buried under a deluge of spam ever after, not so much. The ethical comparison is simply not there.

[whataboutbob]

Look perfect storm I'm not interested in a bunfight. I think it s reasonable to assert that the bounty reps are on the whole not recruited amongst the middle classes, although I ll admit I m in London,. Maybe it would be different in areas of high unemployment.
I did though find the tone of 80% of the posts earlier rather hateful towards these women.

[daphnehoneybutt]

Can't believe this is allowed.

We could create a collective person whose details we give to the bounty woman.

Name "Ms Vaginka Semen"

Address ""

And so on and so forth?

[DinoSnores]

"I did though find the tone of 80% of the posts earlier rather hateful towards these women."

I think there is justifiably a lot of anger about women who are allowed access to vulnerable women at an incredibly emotional, joyous, terrifying moment of life who often lie or mislead to harvest personal details that will then (without you giving appropriate consent) be sold on to third parties. Their work is morally reprehensible!