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Festival fined for 'distressing' texts pretending to be people's mums
A MANCHESTER MUSIC festival has been fined £70,000 (€88,804) after sending promotional texts claiming to be the recipients’ mums.
The Parklife festival organisers were fined after complaints to the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK, who claimed many of the festival-goers who received the messages suffered from ‘substantial distress’. They received a total of 76 complaints about the text.
Screenshot via BBC Newsbeat Screenshot via BBC Newsbeat
One recipient of the text was 19-year-old Rosalind Prior, who lost her mother to multiple sclerosis three years ago. She wrote an email to the organisers after bursting into tears upon opening the text.
RosPrior RosPrior
She wasn’t alone. According to the BBC, the ICO received multiple complaints, including one young man who had also lost his mother and was ‘distressed’ at the ‘unprofessional and disgusting message’
The BBC also report that some people sold their tickets to the festival upon receiving the distasteful message back in June, three weeks before the event was due to take place.
The festival first dealt with the backlash with a joke, tweeting:
But the company has since co-operated with the investigation, saying in a statement
The ICO say the fine will put across the message that this kind of marketing is ‘unacceptable’.
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