View Full Version: 'Church', 'Religions'? - I think not...

Birmingham Anonymous > Off Topic > 'Church', 'Religions'? - I think not...


Title: 'Church', 'Religions'? - I think not...


Virion - January 30, 2009 01:08 PM (GMT)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_Descriptions_Act
Any chance of using this against them.

Chaotic-Eris - January 30, 2009 02:17 PM (GMT)
Their lawyers would find some way of wriggling out of it. But its a way forwards, what do legal fags think?

willonomous - January 31, 2009 09:31 AM (GMT)
personally, if it was that easy it'd have been tried ages ago.

Falco - January 31, 2009 10:01 AM (GMT)
I think this, or something very similar, was suggested and tried over on WWP a while back.

anonstick - January 31, 2009 02:26 PM (GMT)
Office of Fair Trading and Trading Standards
This is from a WWP post in November, which you can find here:

QUOTE (wolfyrik)
I've been barking up this tree for a while. OFT/TS will only intervene if ENOUGH people complain. Things to point out;
Missing prices on adverts/magazines regarding their products.

Any claims of ability to heal/improve the body and/or the mind, written or spoken (though obviously that's harder to prove).

Any claims that if you don't take scientology courses, something bad will happen to you/your family etc

In order for these to count, you don't have to buy anything. The fact that the offer/claim was made is enough.

Here's a government leaflet which outlines the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008:
The Office of Fair Trading: Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008

This is the address of the home authority for scientology, due to the CoS registered business address:

Surrey County Council
Trading Standards
Mid Surrey Area Office
Bay Tree Avenue
Kingston Road
Leatherhead
Surrey
KT22 7SY

You can also call Consumer Direct on 08454 04 05 06
Consumer Direct

The OFT website:
The Office of Fair Trading: making markets work well for consumers

Advertising Standards Authority
The ASA is the other organisation worth considering, as they're likely to act on complaints about false advertising, particularly if they receive them in bulk. This WWP post from December shows that it's possible to have a legitimate complaint upheld (in this case against claims made about Narconon).

The poster received a letter from the ASA in response to a complaint, stating in part:

QUOTE (ASA)
They have agreed to remove the claims that their Narconon drug rehabilitation programme is the 'safest' and 'most effective' programme, and that 'residues from drugs and other toxins lodge in the fatty tissues of the body and stay there, even years after they have been ingested.'


Reading these and other posts on WWP, the consensus seems to be it's "just" a matter of 1) identifying a false claim, 2) lodging an effective, legitimate complaint, and 3) getting lots of people to do the same. So WWP would be the best bet to try to kick something off (again). Individually, successful complaints won't bring down the CoS, and if they can they'll pay lip service and ignore them, but every small victory adds up in one way or another.

What would help is keeping, scanning and posting any leaflets etc we can get our hands on so that more people can get a look at them.


Lastly, there's some stuff about Birmingham city trading restrictions in the thread below:

http://forums.brumanon.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=616

TL;DR
Keep and post CoS flyers/ads so that people can pick holes in them.

Virion - January 31, 2009 03:51 PM (GMT)
http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_...egs/oft1008.pdf
could i draw attention to part (12) on page 27,
part (14) on page 28,
part (17) on the 28,
31(B) on page 31.

Also, 'misleating actions' (regulation 5) looks lik epretty mucha ll of this section.

and after that much i got bord so i went back to my essays :D

anyone else fancy checking if letters sent with these things would be right?
(please and thankyou)



Hosted for free by InvisionFree