2013-05-09

Recruitment agencies

I get loads of email from recruitment companies trying to get me to hire people. One particularly annoying bunch are Huxley Associates.

So I sent them a reply stating that they are not to send any more unsolicited marketing emails, as per section 22(3)(c) of The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. They even replied to that email asking if I had previously been in touch about this, thus proving they had received it.

A couple of weeks later, and another junk email from them. So I am invoicing them for damages. Only £5 for now. It is more of the principle of the thing in this case. I have made it very clear that we'll pursue this through the county courts.

I am in the middle of invoicing them when I get a junk call from another recruitment company, think it was "ITT" or something, who had no clue they were meant to check with the TPS before making junk calls, and then refused to give me their details so I can sue them...

Ironically, this story does not really fit the definition of the word "irony", even though many would think it should.

I'll let you know if we get the £5 :-)

6 comments:

  1. Agencies are parasites. We won't talk to them here at all.

    I actually had one manage to get through to me last week - lied about his company name, told the switchboard he had an urgent delivery, then when he got to me claimed to be a headhunder (pitching a low paid job a few miles away.. and he showed no evidence of having ever seen my CV.. so I'm thinking scumbag recruiter).

    My inbox is spammed with about 5 of these a day, often offering jobs at the other end of the country, asking for skils I never had (and I haven't produced a CV for 2.5 years anyway). I really need to start reporting them in the same way as other spammers..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Someone has commented to me, quite correctly, that section 22 of the PECR only applies to emails sent to individual subscribers.

    This is interesting as the wording is not "intended for", "addressed to", or such, it is "transmitted to".

    So the fact that my personal (individual subscriber) mailbox gets all my work email means I think it does apply in my case.

    We'll see.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I get called at work at my desk at least once a week by a recruiter.
    They always lie to customer services about who they are so they'll be put through. And they really won't take no for an answer. Do they really think that if they pressure me enough I'll give up the job I like for some random thing they want to push. It's quite funny though, they'll often phone everyone in the department one by one in turn. When people's phone rings it's "Oooh it's my turn now!".

    I detest these people.

    ReplyDelete
  4. huxley.com & computerfutures.com are the two in my sender_blacklist file.
    They just never give up. I've been told by some that they scour LinkedIn for keywords like Manager and even though I have "I have nothing to do with recruitment" in my bio they claim they don't get to see that.
    I tell them they are wasting their time and they'd be better off bothering people who gave a damn but for some recruiters it really doesn't work.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I get Huxley spam too. The first few I responded and pointed out that I have nothing to do with recruitment at my employers and told them who to contact. The stuff still arrives, most of it totally inappropriate for my field anyway. They're in the spam filter now and I have no plans to ever do business with them either as an employer or as someone looking for a job.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Interestingly however as a Sole Trader, I count as an individual, even in my business dealings, as far as the PECR goes.

    I've modified my SMTP server's welcome to remind connections that their use of it is subject to our terms & conditions - and our terms & conditions include a £25 processing fee per email for SPAM emails received by us.

    Not managed to get anyone to pay up yet, but when I have a spare 5 mins, there's a couple of hundred quids worth of County Court summons being sent out!

    ReplyDelete

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