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| Subject: Oriental Travel in the "Bad" News again......... | |
Author: sim | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: Sat, Apr 08 2006, 14:50:44 Looks like nothing good comes out from this CON-pany....read on people... News extracted from The Straits Times – Friday 7 April 2006. Page H9 Charity U-Turn on Cash Donated. ComChest now admits it received $32,130 from telemarketer’s associate firm. By Theresa Tan The Community Chest said yesterday it had received a cash donation from a company, a day after claiming it had not received anything. The cause of ComChest’s confusion: It did not know that the telemarketing firm which said it made the donation may be linked to the travel firm in whose name the donation was made. Yesterday, ComChest confirmed it received $32,130 from Oriental Travel last year. Oriental Travel is apparently linked to Great Concepts, the telemarketing firm ComChest has lodged a police report against for making unauthorized use of it’s logo on its lucky draw tickets. The Straits Times report yesterday said a mailer from Great Concepts stated that unclaimed prizes in its lucky draw would be donated to charity, and that already, an unclaimed Toyota Corolla had been donated to ComChest. ComChest, the fund-raising arm of the National Council of Social Service (NCSS), said it did not receive such donation. NCSS chief executive officer Benedict Cheong said his staff had checked their records and verify that no donation had come form Great Concepts. However, one line in the ST report yesterday made them feel “duty-bound” to go over their records again – the line that said an address listed in Great Concepts’ mailer was found to be that of Oriental Travel. As it turn out, the $32,130 from the unclaimed car was donated to ComChest last year – under Oriental Travels’ name. The link between the companies is still not clear, because Great Concepts has not returned calls made by The Straits Times. But two teenage boys told the newspaper that they were interviewed for telemarketing jobs at Great Concepts, they were told they would have to market products for Oriental Travel. The controversy began last month when ComChest, the Salvation Army, Singapore Red Cross, Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and Singapore Children’s Society learnt that their logos were on Great Concepts’ ticket for its “Crack the Safe National Lucky Draw”. The five charities were not involved in it, nor had they even heard of it. And Great Concepts had not sought their permission to use their logos. The tickets were not sold – they were given to people who completed Great Concepts survey. Those who won prizes for having taken part in the survey were later required to sit through a two-hour “presentation” in order to claim their prizes. Worried that people would take part in the draw thinking it was helping the five charities, ComChest, SPCA and the Red Cross lodged police reports. A Salvation Army spokesman told The Straits Time yesterday the police had informed them that the case was now with the Commercial Affairs Department. Lawyers for Oriental Travel said their clients were sorting out what they believed to be “a misunderstanding”. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |