UK Telecoms User Group *DELETED*

Post deleted by MrSaffron

As a subscriptions based group rather than for example a community campaign group the above post fell into the commercial promotion/solicitation area and thus fell foul of our spam rules.

I'm of the persuasion the umpire is always right and as the Moderator you have to interpret the rules. I would argue that the subs are only there to fund user group activities such as renting web-conference tools and the whole thing is non-profit. However you have to make the decision even on borderline cases.

My apologies for the breach

A Google search gives no hits which indicates the group doesn't exist, so probably a scam.

Not a scam, just shocked to realise the appears to be no UK user group to represent common people. We prepared to make the effort to change that. It's not on Google because the site is only a couple of weeks old and also is not yet cross linked with other sites.

I'll make no further comment as I don't want to go against the moderator's ruling for this forum. I'm not going to get in a row with people, the idea will either float on merit or not.

I doubt a paid-for site will succeed on the Internet to be honest.

There appear to be identical ".net" and ".org" domains. Presumably one parked on the other. The first was registered on 10 August 2015, to this name and address:-

Registrant Name: Contact Privacy Inc. Customer 0140959613
Registrant Organization: Contact Privacy Inc. Customer 0140959613
Registrant Street: 96 Mowat Ave
Registrant City: Toronto
Registrant State/Province: ON
Registrant Postal Code: M6K 3M1
Registrant Country: CA

The ".org" one was registered around the same time in the OP's name. Following various chains I find a webcollect.org (Open Bracket Ltd). That may be providing the ".org" domain registration and site builder, so that would explain the strange info above.

On another site there is:-

Having been greatly frustrated by the BT Roll Out of BT Infinity and the lack of any real method of representing our views we checked to see if there was a user group we could join to voice our concerns. To our surprise we found nothing to represent the views of everyday working people, students or retired people. There are user groups associated with individual suppliers, but nothing which covers the broad spectrum.

We're announcing the formation of an independent user group for the consumers of telecommunications within the United Kingdom. We will not be aligned with any supplier, industry group or political party. We'll be there to represent individuals and small businesses. Funding is by member subscriptions and not by sponsorship or government grant.

and on the OP's site:-

How do members help out?
We have a variety of memberships. A full member is expected to take an active part in our activities, to contribute their views and to support the campaigns organised by the User Group. You don�t have to be a geek or a technician to achieve this, but be someone prepared to put forward your point of view while listening to the opinions of other members. We are looking for a sense of realistic common sense approach to representing public needs.

Full Members
There are two types of full membership. A personal Full Membership, where the views you represent are purely your own as a consumer of telecommunications products. There is also a full business membership where an individual is representing his/her business in its experience of consuming telecommunications services. We are not seeking members who represent telecommunications providers.

Associate Members
Associate membership is for those individuals who want to track what is happening in the UKTUG, but don�t want to take an active part in the discussions and campaigns.

I agree with you, I doubt if it will fly. Summarised, the aim is "... to first collect the members views, agree a common strategy, then empower UKTUG members in lobbying the suppliers, regulators and the Government".

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

There appear to be identical ".net" and ".org" domains. Presumably one parked on the other. The first was registered on 10 August 2015, to this name and address:-

Registrant Name: Contact Privacy Inc. Customer 0140959613
Registrant Organization: Contact Privacy Inc. Customer 0140959613
Registrant Street: 96 Mowat Ave
Registrant City: Toronto
Registrant State/Province: ON
Registrant Postal Code: M6K 3M1
Registrant Country: CA

The ".org" one was registered around the same time in the OP's name. Following various chains I find a webcollect.org (Open Bracket Ltd). That may be providing the ".org" domain registration and site builder, so that would explain the strange info above.

Those contact details are for a WHOIS anonymity service - used to avoid having your name and address details displayed in the domain public domain WHOIS registry (see more). Namely, this one is run by TUCOWS who sell domains under a number of brands (the most popular being Hover).

0140959613 is their unique ID for this domain - if you Google that you find the domain in question!

Edited by Adrianuk (Sun 06-Sep-15 19:07:32)

Thanks, but note that my quote was from the whois details, so I'd already found it. Plus quite a lot of other stuff which I've omitted or summarised.

I'm at a loss as to how he's hoping to cover his costs on annual subscriptions of £10 full, £20 business and £2.50 associate. Quite apart from the admin and organisational time required.

Maybe he's planning a return to the e-kebab industry?

Indeed, I quoted your quote - from the wording of your post it seemed you were unsure about the source of those whois details, so I thought I would try and clear it up.

The last bit was for anybody else who is curious.

Edited by Adrianuk (Sun 06-Sep-15 19:57:42)

No. I was deliberately not giving a direct link to the domain name, seeing as it had presumably been deleted as part of the OP . I admit I didn't know about the connection you provided, assuming that it would be pointing at webcollect.

The website URL is in the OP's Profile anyway, which is permitted. @ BatBoy.

You lot in here are like E-Detectives lol

Don't get me wrong i'm not for one minute saying that it's a bad thing

LOL
How about (at least one of) the OP's business accounts for the last five years? (To 28 February 2014). Must have come up with a killer product!

Webcollect appears to just be his payment processor and membership manager rather than host - his site is hosted on a Siteground server (either directly as a hosting customer through them or a reseller, can't tell which) - site itself has been made with some site design software I have never heard of before.

Edit: Having looked at their hosting plans - I would put money on the .net domain being the 'free' domain with his hosting package and the .org being registered elsewhere which explains why one has whois protection and the other not.

Edited by Adrianuk (Sun 06-Sep-15 20:23:24)

Re the site, I was just guessing, based on this page. Other than that, I largely agree with what you say.

That Xara doesn't look at all bad, on a 73.6-second skim.

I hadn't gone to the lengths of checking where the host was.

Posting whois information is against this site's rules.

Posting certain whois info is. Not all such. If you think I broke a rule, and I'm sure I didn't, report the post and it will be deleted by the site management.