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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To ask your opinion and experiences with a Bounty Photographer

94 replies

Emlou07 · 21/01/2018 13:08

Both of my DD were prem so I never experienced one. But I have read quite a lot of bad reports surrounding the reps.

I’ve been offered a job as a ‘Bounty Lady’ only 3 days a week. Fully aware it’s commissioned based. I’m not doing it to pay the bills. So if I take the job, I wouldn’t be a ‘pushy’ rep. So that side of things isn’t an issue.

I’m more interested in what your expietences were? Good or bad? Value for money?

Are they really that disliked?

OP posts:

TeddyIsaHe · 21/01/2018 14:34

I had read the Mumsnet Bounty treads before I gave birth, so I was ready for a pushy idiot that I would have to get stern with. In reality she walked over, I said no thank you and she went off. I was quite disappointed actually

Ohlellykelly · 21/01/2018 14:35

My experience wasn't great either. She was pushy and made out that I had to buy the photos for security purposes. It was my first baby and I had no real support around me. I didn't buy them from her though, she was barmy.

RedHelenB · 21/01/2018 14:35

No I'm not a bounty person but no one in my immediate circle had any problems. The lady at our hospital did it for years and was great with the babies.

OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow · 21/01/2018 14:39

Honestly op, do another job, anything has a greater moral standing than bounty.
Id gone for a wee after birth (section, a long time ago, pre digital cameras and electronic security on ward) came back to bounty woman in my side room alone with my babies. One was crying and she was just going to pick him up. I may have growled at her, I definitely told her to get the fuck away from my baby. She said she'd taken the photos already. I rang for nurse, demanded the film, fighting back tears. She claimed she was going to report me for abusive behaviour.

StargazyDrifter · 21/01/2018 14:46

All this reminds me of a string of celebrity-related privacy law cases, where (broadly speaking) someones would be on a hospital ward and photographed/spoken to without consent or barely aware of what's going on. Yes the difference is that the stuff then got published in the press, but it's at least similar in terms of the intrusion/vulnerability side of things. Those cases, from memory, always come out on the side of the person and not the press. This isn't so different. I'm not saying Bounty is doing anything illegal, but it's clearly morally very questionable.

AnotherGreenDot · 21/01/2018 15:05

It doesn’t matter how “nice” a bounty rep is. They still shouldn’t be allowed on hospital wards. Please rethink.

aaaaargghhhhelpme · 21/01/2018 15:14

Oh gerdaloveslili

I'm so sorry you went through that.

And to everyone having a traumatic time as bounty barges their way in

I was at kings for my first and they were allowed on the ward (must have been before pp) she didn't force the photos (I was a wreck after nearly dying from a placental abruption) but acted as if she was official and needed my details. We were too frazzled and thankful to be alive to question it. For the next three years - basically until we moved - we were bombarded with shit junk mail. I was very careful never to give out our address. Plus I called a couple of the companies and asked where they got my details from. Yeah bounty sold it to every fucker known to man. I thoroughly enjoyed blocking emails but knowing your details are being sold to every company in the country annoyed the fuck out of me.

So op. To your original question, no I wouldn't sell my soul to work for bounty.

SilverySurfer · 21/01/2018 15:19

I guess it depends how you feel about being told to fuck off multiple times a day.

Dionysuss · 21/01/2018 15:50

It is so unethical I can’t believe how they have access to post natal wards. At my local hospital the rep wore a tunic similar to the one that the hearing test person had, i thought it was a midwife assistant at first. I didn’t expect to be given a sales pitch right as I realised my pad had leaked all over the bed.

StargazyDrifter · 21/01/2018 15:59

Yes, the tunics are misleading, you can see them on their website. OP definitely don't do it. If it's photography experience you're after, there have to be other ways like work experience or even photography competitions. If it's hospital experience there are plenty of ways to volunteer with the NHS.

UpABitLate · 21/01/2018 16:03

RedHelenB do you still think that the women who had babies in SCBU or had had late miscarriages are people who "just like to complain!"?

I have trouble getting to grips with your approach. Why do you think their experiences and feelings are invalid? How can you think that there is not a reasonable cause for complaint there?

bloodyhamabeads · 21/01/2018 16:06

With dc1 I was in for 5 days while dd was antibiotics. The bounty lady came and told me she was there to take security photos for the hospital. It was absolutely appalling. She came every day and interuppted me trying to sleep while I could (dd didn’t sleep at night due to not having enough milk while I was establishing breastfeeding). I think they shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near maternity wards.

Dondie · 21/01/2018 16:10

My bounty lady was lovely. She wasn’t pushy and the first time she came to see me it was obvious I wasn’t ready and having a bad day so she came back the next day. She took some lovely pics albeit a bit cheesy and we bought what we wanted. The only negative thing about the experience was the people in the next bed to me that actually had a go at me and my husband for buying the pics saying we were showing off and “dead flash”! 🤔

Lunde · 21/01/2018 16:13

Sales reps should not be given access to wards - full stop!

There would be an absolute outcry if reps for nursing homes or mobility aid companies were given access to the elderly in hospital - so why are mothers subjected to sales reps?

lookingforthecorkscrew · 21/01/2018 16:14

Are these Bounty reps professionally trained photographers? How are their photography skills any better than ours?

cheshiremama89 · 21/01/2018 16:14

This is terrible!
Can you put it on your birth plan so that they aren't allowed in? X

PearlyGatesMontenegro · 21/01/2018 16:19

Was in for 4 days and baby was in SCBU the whole time until the last day. DH spoke to her the first time and was a bit vague and said he would speak to me and see what I thought. She came every single day to see if he was with me, and I felt really unable to say I wasn't interested cos she was so pushy and basically told me DH had told her we would have pics taken even though I know he didn't. On the last day she came in the morning and we asked her to come back at 4pm for some made up reason or another. We were then allowed to go home at 3pm after DH kept asking them could we go yet 😂 the midwife on the ward asked us on the way out cos the bounty woman had obviously told her she was coming back for us and we were just like 🤷‍♀️ see ya 👋🏼

Amanduh · 21/01/2018 16:25

Mine was nice.
Still don’t think they should be allowed

Winosaurus · 21/01/2018 16:26

I literally told the bounty lady to fuck off when I had my son. I ended up shouting at her to leave because she was so intrusive.
I’d had my son at 2am by 6am she was trying to take pictures and both baby and I had only JUST fallen asleep so I calmly explained and asked her to leave.
Then she came back as I was just starting to breastfeed DS so again I asked her to leave.
Then she rudely interrupted the first few minutes when my 4yo DD was meeting her new baby brother for the first time - again I said it’s a private moment again and I wasn’t interested in having pictures anyway.
Then she came back AGAIN as DS had just latched on (we had been struggling to establish feeding) and disturbed him so again I asked her to leave at which point she huffed loudly and almost shouted “Well it’s never convenient for you is it?”

At this point I lost it with her - I was only 8 hours post-partum, tired and irritated with her so I told her to fuck off out of my private room - which she didn’t knock before coming in, I could have been have been having an examination or been in any state of undress. I made a formal complaint to the ward sister because I found her very forceful and intrusive at a time when I wanted privacy and rest.

I fucking hated it.

Follyfoot · 21/01/2018 16:27

I came out of the loo to find the Bounty rep had taken my DD out of her cot and was about to take photos. I was absolutely incensed and made her leave. Looking back years later, I should have complained to the hospital really.

Winosaurus · 21/01/2018 16:32

Follyfoot I’d have lost my shit

domesticslattern · 21/01/2018 16:40

Look, we don't allow sales reps on cancer wards. Paediatric wards. Orthopaedic wards. Psychiatric wards. We allow people privacy, dignity, space to heal, space to get to grips with life-changing events.
Why should post-natal wards be any different?
I would not take the job in a million years.

GinnyBaker · 21/01/2018 16:42

I lost my first ds due to placental failure. I delivered him then had to go to surgery as I placenta was stuck and I was losing too much blood.

Afterwards was in a side room by myself and Bounty woman bounced in saying ' ooh lucky you getting your own room' It probably wouldn't be possible to feel any worse than I already did but it was a brave attempt to do so.

I then had 4 miscarriages where at the booking in app each time I made sure to take the info out of the bounty folder as I refused to have anything todo with them.

My surviving Ds (6th pg) I had a crash section. Pretty touch and go for a few mins. Not feeling brilliant. Bounty harridan turns up. I tell her I don't want anything to do with Bounty. She replies at the top of her voice 'Don't be so stupid. Everyone loves Bounty. People cry when they miss me'

Interestingly I was in a four bed ward by this point and the only one of us who wanted the pack was a vv young teenager who was on her own except for some sort of social worker type person.

MayCatt · 21/01/2018 16:49

YABVU. I think they're appalling. I have no idea why you would want a job where you would be intruding on vulnerable women

I had so many people coming in and out of the cubicle after my first was born the last thing I needed was the bounty sales pitch. She walked in when I was in tears trying to breastfeed my screaming tongue tied baby and ignored the state I was in and started talking at me about photos. I was at the end of my tether and asked her to get out. I later spoke to a midwife about the child benefit form and she said she'd send the lady back so I could get it.

When the bounty woman came around again I said I only wanted that form, she tried to take a email address 'to account for the pack' she was giving me. I told her I didn't want her pack just the form (as in principle I don't agree with the bounty set up at all). She glared at me and said she'd have to 'ruin' a pack to just give me that and couldn't I just give her my details. When I said no she was really hostile and threw the form on the bed. I burst into tears (would normally have told her where to go but was sleep deprived, in pain and hormonal aka vulnerable). It was an awful experience.

However nice you are and however non-pushy you think you'd be, your very presence would be unwanted and deeply inappropriate.

GinnyBaker · 21/01/2018 16:50

@RedHelenB please read my post and tell me if you think I just like to complain

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