YouGov defrauded in BNP poll sting

YouGov - being conned by the BNP

We've all known for ages that the BNP's legions of keyboard warriors are encouraged to vote in online polls where the result, if tilted, is advantageous to the party, but the BNP now appears to have taken this con trick one step further and is supporting a call on its own website to defraud money from YouGov and pay it into the party's coffers.

British Patriot, an administrator on the BNP's own social network, has called on members to join YouGov so that they can be on the list of people to be called when there is a poll to be carried out. As members, these people are given 50p per survey which is paid to them when the amount owed reaches £50. British Patriot suggests;

'Despite recently getting two MEPs elected our support in Yougov polls has recently dropped to 3% (just 1% in Scotland). One of the main reasons people don’t vote for us is because they believe we are a wasted vote, and it’s online polls such as Yougov that give them this impression! If EVERY BNP supporter joined Yougov, we could put our support on a par with the Lib Dems and possibly higher!

On top of this we could actually raise money for the Party via Yougov as you actually get paid for participating in surveys. I have already been sent a £50 cheque by Yougov which I donated to the party. Imagine if every BNP supporter signed up to Yougov and every few weeks, raised £50 which was donated to the party. The party could potentially get £100,000’s per year via Yougov!!!'

British Patriot compounds this suggested fraud by extending it;

'Also if you join Yougov via the referral link below Yougov will send me the equivalent amount in survey credit for each survey they complete during their first three months of membership. Therefore potentially DOUBLING the money raised for the party! You can also send your referral link to your friends and family, and therefore increasing the amount you raise for the party. I’m very close to receiving my second cheque which I would really like to donate towards the legal battle against the treacherous extremist-lefties of the CEHR.'

Regular readers might recall a similar fraud carried out by the BNP on Usborne Books back in April of last year, where the party sold the publishers books illegally via its own tat-flogging Excalibur arm, earning commission on sales despite the breaching of a number of rules. Thanks to swift action by our readers and Usborne, this was stopped in a day or two and the BNP were deprived of any further money from that particular con trick.

With regard to YouGov, the implications are rather more sinister. Apart from the fact that BNP members are being encouraged to obtain money by false pretenses which will then be donated to the party, the party is also deliberately loading the YouGov member base with numerous BNP members, thus skewing any survey or poll result in, where relevant, the BNP's favour. This latter point ties in nicely with a section of YouGov's terms and condition for what they term 'panel members'.

'3.6.6. In the course of using the YouGov WebPages and / or participating in YouGov Activities or YouGov Panels, you agree not to:

h. attempt to submit more than one vote per survey or do any other act that may affect the validity of any result obtained through any YouGov Activity or YouGov Panel.'

Clearly, British Patriot has breached this condition. So who is British Patriot? I've no idea, though I suspect it's that well-known liar and Nick Griffin ghost-writer Paul Golding. But YouGov can find out very easily because whoever it is has helpfully provided us with his referral ID number, which is

5e61b7ea-317c-4005-94d0-fcdd2f2d8b0d

I'm assuming this is all that's needed to identify this fraudster to YouGov but just in case it isn't, here's the full referrer link;

http://my.yougov.com/go.aspx?id=5e61b7ea-317c-4005-94d0-fcdd2f2d8b0d

There's no way of knowing from this end precisely how many people the BNP has fed into this fraud but a quick look at the post on the BNP's social networking set-up (a replacement for its disastrously-managed forum) reveals that around 25 members have joined up to YouGov from that post alone plus an unknown number who have been sent the referral link via those who've joined, their friends and families.

Nor, we discover, is this a new fraud the BNP has set up to raise money. One post from a Stephen Palmer says

'I had already joined YouGov after reading the thread about it on the old BNP forum.'

so it looks like this con has been going on for some time - which makes me wonder about ALL the poll results that place the BNP rather higher than one would expect.

Whether all this is illegal is debatable and I'm no lawyer but it's certainly unethical, definitely skews YouGov's polls which are generally highly-regarded for their accuracy and clearly puts even more money into the Welshpool pig-farmer's already well-stuffed pockets. And we would like to see it stopped.

We'd like you to ring, write to, fax or email YouGov to tell them of this fraud and to let them know who it is being perpetrated by, by referring to the ID number quoted above. If YouGov has any sense, it will close down this fraudster's account and its referrals and demand its money back from the BNP. If not, we can safely assume that it is happy to be funding the racist BNP.

You can contact YouGov in the following ways;

YouGov
50 Featherstone Street,
London, EC1Y 8RT

Tel: +44 (0)20 7012 6000
Fax: +44 (0)20 7012 6001
Email: info@yougov.com

Stay polite (difficult when referring to the BNP, I know) and let us know any results via the comments section. Go for it...

Thanks to NG (no, not that one) for the heads-up.

BNP in hot water over 'Millionaire' leaflet

Who Wants to Be Done for Copyright Theft?

Campaign literature by the BNP that used images from the TV show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? fell foul of copyright rules.

A leaflet to promote BNP hopeful Alan Girvan in Dewsbury East was withdrawn after Carl Morphett of the anti-fascist group Kirklees Unity highlighted the breach. The leaflet featured Labour councillors Paul Kane and Eric Firth above the caption: ‘Q. How many years have you promised to clean up Dewsbury?'

2waytraffic, the company that owns the copyright on the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? images, wrote to Mr Girvan's agent, Coun David Exley, demanding that the leaflets were withdrawn.

Coun Exley said the leaflet was no longer being distributed by the time the complaint occurred.

He said: "The company telephoned me about it. There was no shouting and bawling. They said they weren't happy with the image being used to promote any political organisation - not just the BNP. I gave them notice that it had been withdrawn."

He said the agreement was formalised in writing - and that was the end of the matter. He said he was furious over comments from Carl Morphett "It makes my blood boil. Carl Morphett has nothing better to do than criticise other people's efforts," he added.

Mr Morphett said: "Mr Exley should know that as an agent for Mr Girvan he should have played by the rules."

Dewsbury Reporter

Thanks to our friends at Kirklees Unity for the heads-up

This is of course, far from the first time that the BNP has happily ignored copyright. A couple of years back, we reported the party's use of one of the children's characters, the Mr Men, dressed as a suicide bomber, on the party's so-called 'jokes' page. Chorion, the company that holds the copyright on the Mr Men, was much perturbed at any association with the far-right party and demanded the removal of the image. Similar breaches occurred with the Apple iPod ad images and the Books for Dummies series images. Anything goes at the BNP.

Just a few weeks ago, we reported the sale of Usborne children's books through the party's Excalibur merchandising site. Presumably the BNP hoped to achieve some spurious and undeserved respectability through their sale and a perceived link between Usborne and itself. Following complaints from ourselves and many of our supporters, Usborne forced the party to remove the books from the Excalibur website.

We need to keep a close watch on the BNP for anything of this nature. We already know that the party will ignore the law wherever it can and on the thinnest pretext, and we need to bring these constant breaches to the attention of a wider public. Keep your eyes skinned, folks.

Usborne children's books and the BNP

Usborne is a major independent UK publishing company that publishes almost every type of children's book for every age from baby to teenager. As such, it has a well-deserved reputation for delivering top-quality books and it is rare to find a home or nursery that doesn't have several well-thumbed Usborne books tucked away somewhere.

One of the innovative ways that Usborne goes about its business is via what the company refers to as Usborne organisers: that is, somebody home-based who sells the books for a commission. Nursery organisers frequently do this as it enables them to obtain discount books and to make a little money on the side by selling direct to parents. Generally, the profits made - and they can be substantial - are put back into the nursery/playgroup. Commission varies but starts at around 25%.

So what does Usborne have to do with the BNP?

Not a great deal as far as we know, but as we are all aware, the BNP is full of money-making scams and schemes and one of its current schemes is, we have found, selling Usborne books.

The BNP's childen's books section - sold via Excalibur, its cheap-tat-flogging arm - is a tad limited. For instance, while it sells Usborne's books on Nelson, Florence Nightingale and Saint George and the Dragon (no surprise there), it manages to avoid offering some of Usbornes other history books on subjects such as the Holocaust, Anne Frank or Martin Luther King.

All Usborne organisers have to sign an Organiser Agreement before they are allowed to sign up and start selling. Some of the terms and conditions are listed below:

(3.1) You will conduct your business as an Usborne Organiser in an ethical and honest manner, and do nothing which may harm or damage the reputation of that business or the Company, or bring the Company into disrepute.

Clearly, whoever the organiser is, has not conducted their business in an ethical or honest manner, being in breach of section (3.3). Also, we believe an assumed relationship with the BNP would be damaging to the reputation of Usborne and would certainly bring it into disrepute.

(3.3) You will not sell the company’s products through or to any retail outlet, including on-line outlets, whether hosted by yourself or a third party. The only exception is if you have an official Usborne templated website, and you are compliant with all Usborne copyright requirements in all areas of your Usborne business.

The Usborne books on the Excalibur website can only be reached via the BNP's own website. Both are retail outlets and neither have an official Usborne template. As the BNP constantly disregards copyright, we doubt that it is compliant with Usborne's copyright requirements at all.

(14) This Agreement may be terminated immediately by either party if either party commits a material breach of its obligations to the other or if you do
anything which in the opinion of the Company is prejudicial to the Company's interests. Either party may otherwise terminate this Agreement by giving to the other not less than 14 days written notice.

It seems to us that the BNP - or the person who has taken on the role of an Usborne organiser and is selling via the BNP's Excalibur site - has breached these terms and has almost certainly acted in a way that 'is prejudicial to the Company's interests'. We feel sure that Usborne will want this association with the BNP broken - but they need to be informed in no uncertain terms that the association is there and that people are not happy about it. Thus, we would like you to get in touch with Usborne, to let them know your views on this matter. Please report back via the comments to this article.

Like a lot of other companies, Usborne does not display an email address, but it does have an online form to fill in here. If you prefer to write or phone, the details are below.

Usborne Books at Home
Unit 8, Oasis Park
Eynsham
Oxon OX29 4TU
United Kingdom

Telephone:
+44 (0) 1865 883731

Fax:
+44 (0) 1865 883759