Sales Pitch!
Yeah so, after my epic shit blog on Northbridge, I suppose this post is kind of anti climactic. I do however kind of need to whinge about salespeople and their dodgy sales pitches, because Cam and I wasted at least 5 minutes of our time today listening to this girl go on and on…only to have her open up an invoice book to log our credit card details and address so she could bill us daily of $1 “for a year…or however long you want us to take your money!”
Having gone through a really dodgy experience with a dodgy salesperson at a Fitness First gym with my friend Sam, I know ALL ABOUT dodgy. And this…screamed dodgy.
We were walking merrily along when we are interrupted by this girl, who claimed to be part of the Wilderness Society. Holding up a booklet with a map of Australia covered in squares on it, she proceeds in asking us if we liked nature and wanted to protect our environment. Well, of course we aren’t gunna say NO!!!(but perhaps we should have in hindsight)
She then begins to tell us about how Colin Barnett wants to destroy the ocean and build some oil rig up in the North Western Australia where whales migrate, and that the government is shit and is destroying the Kimberley. It’s happening now, and if we don’t act soon the place will be gone for future generations.
Now this – I don’t doubt. I know the Kimberley has seen a lot of controversy with the recent developments underway, and I know there have been many developers keen in mining and excavating the area. The way she sold her cause however…..just didn’t seem right.
After waving around a generic map of Australia in our face with a bunch of squares where they want ‘protected’, she opens her invoice book which has NO LOGO, NO DOCUMENTATION, NOTHING but spaces to fill out your name, address and credit card details. Why did they need the money? “Research”. Yes. Okay then.
I even asked her about where the money went to, and what type of research they were doing.
“Oh well…we need it for campaigns and researching the whales and plants up there…”
“Yeah but what kind of research?”
“Oh just like…counting whales and flora. By the way, the government is shit!” 
Yeah. great explanation there. Not only did she keep repeating herself and how they needed to do extra ‘research’, she had no idea what I meant when I asked how the Wilderness Society was funded. Ironic huh?
In selling her cause and getting us to give her our bank details, she claimed it would “only” cost us a dollar a day. Since she assumed Cam and I were together, we could split it 50/50 so it would be 50 cents a day. We were both a bit iffy by now and wanted to get away, so we said we were both poor and had no money for them to direct debit us.
She then went on to ask us if we had lunch and we were in fact going to find somewhere to eat. “Well what’s a $7 sandwich? That’s a week’s worth of money that could go to us and our research!”
Yeah – funny! Or….I could just save up and spend that money on something worthwhile and something which I KNOW am getting!
She then went on about future generations, and our shitty government and their need for money for ‘research’ and…..yeah.
It got old pretty quick, and while I do think in contrast, joining every Facebook group in defense of the poor defenseless whales up north in the Kimberley is also quite redundant, seriously???? Shoving some generic invoice book in our faces and asking us for our name/address/bank details?
Today Tonight and ACA have it easy with scams like this!
But Jakki! Think of our kids!
They won’t get to see the magnificence of whatever was inside that rectangle on the map!
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PS…
…Research.
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T-shirt slogan right there
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