just had a run in with the maternity ward bounty photographer

[StateofConfusion]

And having previously defended them and loved my pictures of my eldest children todays 'rep' has made me agree they need to be removed from wards!

She arrived originally before breakfast turned on the lights and opened curtains waking me and the other Mum up, then continued to talk over the peadiatrician who was checking my dd over.

Eventually she sulked off but apparently came back when I was asleep (how dare I?) Last time she came back as I'd just settled dd and was eating lunch which had just arrived.

I said No photos at the minute thanks she got most insistant that its for security reasons?? (I'm going home today) and said she'd just lean round and take them, dd was asleep on my lap in a v pillow whilst I ate. I said again, not right now I'm eating she left brochures and went off muttering quite loudly.

I'm hormonal so ofc this has upset me, but not as much as the first time mum across they way! WHY are these people allowed to just walk around a maternity ward being so fucking rude!

"but who has the wherewithal to bring a case when they've got a newborn? That is why this company gets away with it"

yup same reason that companies that sell ruinous financial products to confused elderly people get away with it!

The Bounty reps could peddle their wares at antenatal classes instead.. or at BF groups, but they don't because they don't sell to people who are 'with it', they sell it to people who are shell shocked and often drugged and who just want to get into some sort of normality at home with their new child, so don't complain straight away.. then feel it's too late

Thanks sock I really am horrified by some of these stories and I wish I could take all of you I to work with me to see how I see it through my eyes. I am not a sales person I am a distributor I give out bags, I offer Mums photos and if they want to have them done, great. I will do the best photos I can, part of the money goes to the maternity ward and the Mums can buy them from £15 which I know is not a rip off (as long as its a good photo) as I have kids of my own and have spent a fortune on pictures. I do completely understand everyone's view though on the intrusion etc.

and what photography credentials do you have?

you're not a sales person? so your pay isn't at all affected if noone buys the photos or if they all tick the "do not contact" box and just take the bags? really?

I think you're missing the point, it doesn't matter how nicely you do it, the fact that you are there at all is wrong!

I wonder if some hospitals are better at controlling them than others. My hospital is fantastic, was very sensitive to me though miscarriage and poorly babies - and the bounty pack was given to me by midwife and bounty lady I think asked politely if we would like photos and then left when we declined - I don't really remember that well tbh, but I would have remembered if she had been rude or insensitive. Some of these stories are awful!

It has been hard reading tonight some of the comments so felt I just had to say please don't tarnish us all with the same brush

Oh Ok

you work for a company that makes money out of dead babies. they pay you with blood money,

but it must be all the other bounty women who collect baby names and details and when those babies die, Bounty refuse to remove those details from those list, but that's not a problem for bounty, just the parents and siblings of those babies.

Bounty are not interested in doing anything to stop selling dead babies details.

Imagine if a mum came on this forum and asked, AIBU to make money out of my dead baby?

she would be tracked down and shredded,

sorry you are in denial, but you work for one very sick company.

Reading what you've just posted redtoothbrudh - it sounds like Bounty are seriously contravening Trading Standards.

I think that xmas has been brave to admit she works for them, when clearly so many women on here hate the Bounty Lady. I personally think it is disgusting that brand new mums (possibly still in a state of shock/high on drugs/unable to move) are essentially hounded in some cases for a few poxy photos.
What should happen is that when you arrive at the hospital (maybe in your notes?) you should be asked if you are interested in Bounty. If you are not, she is not allowed to talk to you at all.

To be honest, it makes me think anyone could get a job for Bounty, and then they'd be allowed to wander round the wards collecting addresses etc. Are Bounty Ladies CRB checked etc?

Plus, I think they are a rip off www.bountyweb.co.uk/portrait/orders/products.php

Dontbeatmeupitsxmas

so your mother is in hospital with a raging UTI which makes her a bit confused, a sales rep comes onto her ward OUTSIDE of visiting hours, and "distributes" some freebees/advertising shite to her in exchange for her details to be sold on to agressive marketting companies who will hound her despite repeated requests to stop

that's okay?, so long as they did it nicely? they're just nice people doing a job they love huh?

and the photos ARE a total rip off considering the sales reps they recruit are not photographers!

To be honest, how many babies look gorgeous as soon as they come out? Most are squished, bruised, veiny, and generally odd looking for a few days.

There is nothing I treasure more than the photo of me, OH and baby, taken by my midwife, baby was only 15 minutes old. I'd take that over any posed photo that cost £15 any day.

Quote unquote, in the awful event of an infant death the Midwife In charge has a form to complete which we act on immediately to remove the mothers details if she is listed with bounty. Am so sorry you went through this I can't imagine how awful it was, unfortunately I have to make a few of these phone calls as soon as we get notification from the midwife.

hmm, not a sales person?.. its comission only.. Sales experience desired... nothing about PHOTOGRAPHY experience though

www.reed.co.uk/jobs/photographer-bounty-distribution-co-ordinator/22395970#/jobs/bounty-uk/p6567

Of course they are. And its made worse by the fact that hospitals are enabling this, and therefore people are under the mistaken idea that its somehow therefore acceptable, when its very clearly not.

There is no way you can possibly have sales people (and yes you are a sales person if you are merely handing out bags too, as you sign people up and are selling their details on to a third party in return - they are NOT free packs). on a hospital ward visiting people in bed and NOT be controvening Trading Standards, as it breaks 2a and c straight away:

(2) In determining whether a commercial practice uses harassment, coercion or undue influence account shall be taken of?
(a)its timing, location, nature or persistence;
(c)the exploitation by the trader of any specific misfortune or circumstance of such gravity as to impair the consumer?s judgment, of which the trader is aware, to influence the consumer?s decision with regard to the product;

More clauses from the PDF:
Harassment, coercion and undue influence
8.3 Harassment and coercion are not expressly defined in the CPRs but include both physical and non-physical, (including psychological) pressure.

Significant Impairment or Limitation
8.5 The CPRs refer to practices that ?significantly impair? and those that ?significantly limit? decisions (the latter is in the definition of undue influence).These are likely to have a very similar meaning and both will depend on the context.
8.6 Significant impairment might occur when, for example, a trader stays in a consumer?s home for so long that they feel compelled to sign a contract for a product.

Freedom of choice or conduct
8.7 The concept of freedom of choice is not limited solely to decisions about whether to purchase a product or not. It covers a wide range of choices that are likely to impact on transactional decisions.

Really, how can they NOT be breaking a whole pile of things VISITING PEOPLE IN HOSPITAL BEDS? Its completely and utterly beyond me.

You're a sales rep.

If you walk up to people, unsolicited, offering to take picture in exchange for money, you're cold selling. The packs are used as a prop to get details off people. Those details are then sold for profit.

In a best case scenario you're approaching vulnerable people, often drugged and in pain, with a couple of sample size products that entitle them to a lifetime of junk mail. And you sell them overpriced pictures taken by someone with no photography credentials. You walk around the ward as though you have a right to be there - as though you're part of the hospital staff - when you're a salesperson.

Dontbeatmeupitsmas Have you ever been CRB checked?

Since digital cameras and phones with cameras became commonplace there is just no need at all for the Bounty lady. The packs can be left in a bookcase somewhere around the ward, or if the MWs are willing they could give them out (doubt this though) with a post box for any completed forms that a new mum wishes to submit to Bounty. These completed forms could be collected by a Bounty person from the hospital main desk once a week, dropping new packs off at the same time. There is utterly no need for the Bounty salesperson to be on the ward at all.

Agree Bounty reps can be a problem.

DS was 6 weeks early, and taken straight to SCBU because he needed help breathing and had a few other issues.

The midwives kindly put me in a private room on the post-natal ward, which was good of them, because seeing all the other new mums with healthy babies right next to them made me feel a bit emotional.

The Bounty lady threw the door to my room open, looked at the empty cot in the corner, and demanded to know what I'd done with my baby
Although she did just skulk off when I told her he was in SCBU, so better than some of the Bounty ladies other people on this thread came across.

Dontbeatmeupitsxmas - I did wonder at the time if the Bounty ladies are supposed to check in with the midwives to see if there's new mums that they shouldn't hassle - i.e. mums with babies in SCBU/NICU or with stillborn babies - can you answer that question?

(Incidentally, the neo-natal nurses working in SCBU took a few photos of DS and came and gave them to me for free before he was 12 hours old. Maybe not professional standard photos, but pretty good quality considering that he was in an incubater at the time.)

I'm not going to knock someone for having a job when they are so rare if they act with in the rules and are honest.

Nor am I going to knock them for working where there employer tells them to.

But sure as the sun rises i will knock the hospitals who let them do it and the directors of the company who profit massively from it.

They have about as much a place in hospitals post natal wards as a Weatherspoons would.

BANNED PRACTICEs (sChEDULE 1)
(25) Conducting personal visits to the consumer?s home ignoring the consumer?s request to leave or not to return except in circumstances and to the extent justified13 to enforce a contractual obligation.
A door to door salesman visits a consumer to sell her some cleaning products. She tells him she is not interested and asks him to leave. He is determined to try and get her to change her mind and continues his sales pitch on her doorstep.This would breach the CPRs.

Giving false information to, or deceiving, customers
7.3 A misleading action occurs when a practice misleads through the information it contains, or its deceptive presentation, and causes or is likely to cause the average consumer to take a different decision.

8.4 Undue influence is defined in regulation 7(3)(b) of the CPRs as:
?exploiting a position of power in relation to the consumer so as to apply pressure, even without using or threatening to use physical force, in a way which significantly limits the consumer?s ability to make an informed decision?.

Note: simply swanning around a ward without properly informing someone you are a salesperson rather than a health professional put you in a position of power.
Note: approaching an immobile person, probably also puts you in a position of power too.

sorry, that might be what is meant to happen, but it's not what does happen,

after 12 years do not think we tried everything? as have countless other parents.

it comes up at baby loss support a lot, breaks my heart as parents still go through the extra unnecessary crap we did,

Bounty are total shits.

leaving the thread now, it's making me feel stabby, and bounty have had far to much of my energy over the years. fucking vile bastards,

I have to make a few of these phone calls oh hard, start a support group,

You do know they do fuck all with that information at the other end, they have already sold on the details, but you tell yourself what ever you want, just don't start to try and justify anything that bounty does, you are defending a truly sick organisation.

I did actually mean be honest to the mother of the baby at points of contact.

Yes am crb checked and have been on numerous photography courses and registered with the MPA. Narked I am not a stupid woman. I would hope a HV would be able to notify the appropriate people and support the Mum, dad and siblings. This has been a shock to the system tonight, all my friends and most Mums at the hospital tell me what a lovely job I have.