CURIOUSLY A BIT DODGY
Being a long standing supporter of AGE UK I had a call from Bill, an employee of CRITERIA. "We know you are a supporter of Age UK. Would you like to be a panellist on a ZOOM call we are setting up for a couple of weeks from now?" AGE UK had obviously engaged CRITERIA to work for them as a publicist.
I asked some detailed questions and did some background checks and sent them an email agreeing to take part. They came back saying, 'thank you. Your 'inducement' will be £70'. I was thinking, 'well I can chat away on ZOOM happily enough. Sounds fun'. They also made it clear that 'off screen' others would be watching and listening. I assumed that included someone from AGE UK. The ZOOM was to last 90 minutes max.
Before the event I worked out my suggestion on how AGE UK could probably reap in multiple £Ms if they 'snuggled up' to groups of elderly, intelligent and wealthy older people. We have such a group here in HONITON. It's called U3A, University of the Third Age. Before each meeting, and I am sometimes a speaker there, they run ads on screen as the audience settles.
There are U3As in all our local towns and cities. Roll that out nationally. I prepared a simple set of words which I thought I would be able to display on the ZOOM CHAT side of the screen. I also drew attention to our Surgery which has a rolling programme, on screen, of NHS notices and other helpful information. AGE UK could be helpful to many elderly patients.
Two days before the ZOOM I did a camera and mic test check remotely with a helpful lady called Danielle from CRITERIA.
On the live ZOOM (24/04/2026) A cheerful, chatty man introduced himself as the host, and us three panellists. One was a male Specialist Doctor, now semi-retired from a midlands hospital, and then there was a lady. We could not see her because she could not get her camera/mobile to connect. After ten minutes the host told her we would just go ahead with her on sound only.
The host seemed bent on asking lots of questions to get us talking. I thought this a bit odd as several of the questions were just silly but I didn't mind taking part. This went on for around 80 minutes so I asked if I could put up my points for AGE UK in the CHAT screen. After all that was why I was here. "I'll come back to that in a minute Jim."
In the last minute he said, "what are your points Jim?" So I gabbled some of them out and forgot the others due to the last minute rush and pressure. This is mainly why I am downing this to a 2* REVIEW which I don't do lightly if you look at my previous.
The final twist in this sorry tale is the £70.
After about four weeks I rang Danielle to ask when I could expect to see the £70 'inducement'. To be fair, as I always am, she was genuinely horrified that I not been paid, as was her line manager, Katherine. "Check in your JUNK. You are looking for ALYA". ALYA? Now there is a 4th party in this curious set up.
So I went to ALYA where I was told to REGISTER. Boring I thought… but I did. I had a screen saying 'Registration in progress'. Then I had 22 repeats of that… and they are still coming! Eventually I did the obvious thing and sent my BACS details to Danielle and was paid the following day.
So that's the complete story which is necessarily a bit lengthy and I am sorry about that. Has AGE UK had good value for its outlay? I think not.
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