Cracking defence again Fogbound and well done to you. Final paragraph might give you the warm and fuzzies but it doesn't cut it with us.
Training school ads and follow up literature are littered with exaggerations, misinformation, downright lies, oh, and tiny little things like stock photos of new aircraft rather than the real ones on the line. They are not the way to communicate just because you are straight with the wannabees.
Please think this through. We can create e-mail addresses and internet phone numbers at will here in the Towers. We mystery shop to check up on 'ambiguous statements.' We take legal advice. We don't get 'exact' information we get 'misinformation. We may not have headlines comparable to what we did with the Guv but we do have bent purveyors of flight training facing charges.
You have the confidence to stand up for yourself and the way you work - again, that's fine. The point is that at every show or speaking engagement Danny or I attend folks working for FTO's are telling us within 10 minutes about the latest charlatans. Your industry doesn't do anything about it. We can only conclude that is because people in your industry reckon they might end up working for them in the future.
You allow wannabees to find both the sharks and the angels on their own. Even worse you state they should find out entirely by relying on adverts!! This forum is littered with the victims, their shattered dreams and their debts. Every one of them had warm and cozy chats with an agent or marketing person.
So one more chorus:
This forum is for the wannabees - just like you were.
Advertising supports PPRuNe and not the other way round.
Advertisers need us because it's where the vast majority of wannabees go every single day in that fleeting half life that is so utterly vital to FTO's.
We're here for the long haul and we have the memories and details that wannabees lack and suffer through.
We will continue our policies of caveat emptor and never pay up front as we always have done. We will 'out' those pushing their own commercial agendas. As long as your industry protects the inept, the the bent and the downright criminal we'll carry on doing what we do. You'll only get our attention and respect when your industry uses Trading Standards, the ASA, the CAA, Companies House, Customs and Excise and, ultimately, the Police the way we do.
One final word for the FTO's. In case you're feeling like waving your displeasure over our heads, take a close look at the bottom of the page. The ads that have always appeared there are gone and the income from them has as well. We binned the bent gets because they were sending in spyware to probe your computers. You'll find the whole story on our computer forum if you want the details.
The point is this - we kicked them off the site along with the income to protect the computers of our readers who don't pay us a single penny. So don't waste your time by threatening to run away with your advertising ball.
Remember - you need us and the wannabees not the other way round. Yeah, I know it's not like dealing with other publications because we couldn't give a stuff about the money. Get used to it.
Rob Lloyd
Last edited by PPRuNe Towers; 27th July 2003 at 02:48.