Exploiting our need to care?

An email arrives in my inbox, subject titled ‘Help out our mates Down Under’. It’s from Virgin Wines.

Thinking that it’s a charity appeal and that andrewb@virginwines.com has got together with his contacts in the wine industry in Australia to do something to help the victims of the wildfires I open the email, as presumably the company expected I would.

So I’m disgusted to report that it was just a springboard for what amounted to any other wine offer.

Just a horrible exploitative headline that reminds me of those rubbish classified ads that begin SEXSEXSEX Ironing Board for sale …

But in this case the base human instinct Virgin Wines appears to have sought to exploit is our – my – need to care for somebody else.

So I’ll be giving my Virgin WineBank balance of £60 to The Salvation Army in Australia – whose members practise temperance by the way – which is what Virgin Wines should have asked me to do in the first place.

Shame on them.