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Comments:
Thank you so much for yor help. We only just got approached in the last two days - and persistent was the word! They were also fibbers saying they had spoken to our chief exec too. I work for a charitable organisation in Kent.
Have just received a call from the "Parliamentary Information Office" - another name for Blake's Publishing or the Parliamentary Yearbook.
Having dealt with them before I was on my guard. What they say is very carefully worded - he named the company as "Parliamentary information office" which sounds official but has nothing to do with Parliament.
He then said that our name had been proposed to be part of a new publication on the construction industry. The report, he said, was "headed up by" Boris Johnson and Conservative Housing Minister Grant Schapps - which makes it sound like they are promoting the document. In reality, I understand they have just provided a foreword.
When I then said I wasn't interested and thought they were close to misrepresenting themselves the caller became offended and said "we are completely independent of parliament and I want to be clear I have not misrepresented ourselves in any way."
The fact is that unless you listen very carefully they present themselves in a way which gives the impression they are an official Government organisation or have an official association with Government departments, Parliament or Whitehall.
I had a client in my previous job who paid thousands for what they thought was an advert on the official House of Commons website - of course it was no such thing. They had been told it was a new "parliamentary" website which was "linked to" the official website - ie: in reality there was a link on the bottom of the page - which could be done by anyone.
DO. NOT. TOUCH. THIS. COMPANY. WITH. A. BARGEPOLE.
These books and reports are a complete waste of time and money, ludicrously expensive and in my experience working with MPs, go straight in the bin when they are posted out. Advertising money is better spent with one of the reputable publishers working with Parliament in an official capacity like The House Magazine.
Better still, spend the money on something worthwhile and then write and tell MPs about it yourself.
We have also had this company calling for the past 2 weeks insisting that they must speak with our CEO and once they get put through to someone else they put the phone down.....glad we have discovered this site and now we know who they are, we will look forward to the next call!!
Don't speak to these people! They keep calling themselves the 'Parliamentary Information Office' at Blakes publishing, and have been hassling our vice-chancellor for a week now, I've not let them speak to him after googling them! They refuse to send anything by email, and I asked the woman what she meant by 'Government Initiative in Eduation'. She replied 'Education'. Good answer - thats not a con at all. The woman is forceful and sounded like she was in a call centre - unlikely if they are really working for the government!
Thank you for your advice. Just had a phone call from David Church of the Parliamentary Information Office 0208 956 4041 trying to sell us a one page advert and a 500 word web page for £2,750. He said it was for environmental sustainability, supported by BMW, Atkins, the Waterman Group and Leeds University. He threw out names including John Prescott, John Ashton and Stavros Dimas. Because of the information on this page I'm comfortable declining the generous offer - for misrepresentation as much as anything else.
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Visitors to the site are reminded that the details contained within user comments are uncorroborated and as such should not be read as fact but as the opinion of the person who left the comment.
Comments:
Having dealt with them before I was on my guard. What they say is very carefully worded - he named the company as "Parliamentary information office" which sounds official but has nothing to do with Parliament.
He then said that our name had been proposed to be part of a new publication on the construction industry. The report, he said, was "headed up by" Boris Johnson and Conservative Housing Minister Grant Schapps - which makes it sound like they are promoting the document. In reality, I understand they have just provided a foreword.
When I then said I wasn't interested and thought they were close to misrepresenting themselves the caller became offended and said "we are completely independent of parliament and I want to be clear I have not misrepresented ourselves in any way."
The fact is that unless you listen very carefully they present themselves in a way which gives the impression they are an official Government organisation or have an official association with Government departments, Parliament or Whitehall.
I had a client in my previous job who paid thousands for what they thought was an advert on the official House of Commons website - of course it was no such thing. They had been told it was a new "parliamentary" website which was "linked to" the official website - ie: in reality there was a link on the bottom of the page - which could be done by anyone.
DO. NOT. TOUCH. THIS. COMPANY. WITH. A. BARGEPOLE.
These books and reports are a complete waste of time and money, ludicrously expensive and in my experience working with MPs, go straight in the bin when they are posted out. Advertising money is better spent with one of the reputable publishers working with Parliament in an official capacity like The House Magazine.
Better still, spend the money on something worthwhile and then write and tell MPs about it yourself.
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