Letter: Ripped off for student riches

Correspondent • Published 15 Apr 2010 09:00 0 Comments

See also:

On Saturday last in Broad Street I was approached by a young lady selling a magazine entitled Rag to Riches Magazine - Students "R" Cool.

In no way did she misrepresent what she was selling, which incidentally was marked £3 but she was accepting "anything you can afford", but with the title of the publication I assumed it had some connection with Reading University.

Knowing that University Rag Days/Magazines usually raise money for charities I bought a copy, only to discover it had nothing at all to do with Reading University but had been compiled and printed by "scholars" from the Universities of Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Cardiff, Swansea, etc, etc, and produced as an initiative to give students, ex-students and the unemployed the opportunity to earn money by the selling of it, furthermore a percentage of the cover price is retained by the vendor.

I question Reading Borough Council sanctioning the sale of something which has nothing at all to do with Reading, if in fact they did, and was I the only person taken in?

Pam Atkins (Mrs), Tilehurst

- A spokesman for Reading Borough Council responds: "If the magazines of this kind are sold as a perodicals, then no permission is required from Reading Borough Council.

"This also applies to local newspapers for example.

"Permission would only be required from the council if the seller of the magazine was specifically claiming to be a charity which, working solely from the content of the letter above, does not seem to be the case."

Return to the main index, get more from this section or browse our Opinion archives.

Follow @rdgchronicle