[jambutty]

SPAM – an UNSOLICITED email that offers a service or something for sale.

However if at the head you declare that it will be the only email that the recipient will receive from you and there is a disclaimer at the end with a link to enable your email address to be removed from the database and you identify yourself with name and address, then it is not classed as SPAM. It becomes legitimate advertising.

However none of that is necessary if you write something like:
“My friends and me have decided not to buy petrol from any Esso or BP garage for the foreseeable future. We will only buy from Shell and supermarket garages instead. We are doing so in protest at the high pump prices. We reason that lack of sales of BP and Esso petrol throughout the UK will force those two companies to reassess their pricing policy. When they do it will put pressure on other petrol companies to do the same. The end result being a reduction in petrol prices at the pump.”

You will notice that nowhere does it invite the recipient to join the boycott. To do so could be classed as inviting collusion.

Incidentally who supplies the petrol for the various supermarkets? Surely Esso and BP are in there somewhere even if the brand name isn’t on the pumps. Has Shell got themselves a monopoly in supplying supermarkets?

Sadly the scheme is a non-starter except for a few dedicated people. People will say, “Yes! Great idea!” then come the next day they will have forgotten all about it and fill up as usual.

We, the general public, are a divided bunch and will cater to our own needs over and above the needs of anyone else.

The petrol companies and the government, if you pardon the phrase, “have us over a barrel.”