Hewlett Packard send Deceptive Email to UCAS Mailing List
UCAS is a publically funded body in the UK. Apparently they rent their list to commercial organisations.
UCAS is the organisation that allots university places for students. On the day students expected their exam results they got an email with the headline "you've been accepted" from UCAS.
The contents of the email were actually a special offer for a laptop from HP.
Thi kind of deceptive behaviour turns an opted-in message into spam in my opinion.
Student fury at 'You've been accepted' spam email from UCAS
Furious students voiced their anger with the university admissions service after they received a misleading spam email telling them 'you've been accepted' - just hours before they were due to pick up their A-level results.
Many of the teenagers assumed the email was official confirmation that they had achieved the required grades and had been accepted by their choice of university.
But the messages were simply adverts for a discounted Hewlett Packard laptop.
Spam: Students waiting to find out if they had been accepted into university received a misleading email from UCAS
The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, UCAS, today apologised and said it would be working to prevent 'this type of situation in the future'.
But online message boards and a Facebook
group set up by furious university hopefuls were flooded with messages attacking UCAS for sending the misleading email.
Raheem Kassam, spokesman for the Student Rights organisation, described the decision to send the email just hours before students were due to get their A-level results as 'utterly callous'.
He said: 'Some people are absolutely fuming. These people are waiting to find out what's happening with their future. It's an extremely important time for them and to receive an email like this from UCAS is completely wrong. To send something like that the day before A-level results is utterly callous. Heads will roll. It was a huge error of judgment.'
Another post on a separate online messageboard said: 'Got that email on my phone on the way back from work. My phone only displays the first four words in the email subject. Needless to say I was cursing UCAS.'
Another said: 'My heart stopped when I saw the email. It's totally wrong of them to do that to me.'
A UCAS spokesman said: 'We understand and apologise for the confusion this has caused to some applicants, and we are looking at reviewing our quality filters to avoid this type of situation in future.'
Hewlett Packard was unavailable for comment.
Read more at www.dailymail.co.uk
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