Here's an example of catastrophic PR.

I launched a web campaign in the year 2000 against BT's Cellnet mobile phone subsidiary after they took money from my credit card account without my authority, several times, and then refused to apologise, refund my money or compensate me. This was despite the fact that I had never been a Cellnet customer! They had cynically introduced a credit card phone top-up system which they knew to be insecure, as a way of gaining market share.

I found that, contrary to Cellnet's emphatic denials, the problem was very widespread, and I received literally hundreds of e-mails from other victims, some of them quite tragic. My campaign attracted widespread media coverage, forcing BT Cellnet to appear in a number of TV and radio programmes, and countless newspaper and magazine articles, to explain themselves. I persisted, despite severe intimidation from Cellnet, and visits from their high-powered London lawyers and PR firm. This intimidation was systematic and deliberate : several correspondents also reported heavy-handed treatment by Cellnet after they'd (quite reasonably) complained about being defrauded.

When Cellnet's position became untenable (even by their own disgraceful standards) they eventually changed their billing system, still without admitting that they'd been in the wrong, and still refusing to compensate victims. Cellnet subsequently demerged from BT (which was acutely embarrassed by the affair) and changed their name to O₂. Sadly, this is pronounced "odeur" in French, so the taint remains.

You can still read about the campaign here, and another page shows just some of the incredible media coverage, all of it highly critical of BT Cellnet. There was even an article in The Guardian about the effectiveness of the campaign itself, rather than the issue behind it.

Nemo me impune lacessit.

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