Dragro Norway, which sells toilet paper over the phone, got a bit carried away with its sales and marketing efforts just before Christmas, and wound up having to publicly apologize for what both consumers and police suspected was a scam. “We have clearly made a mistake, but we don’t deal in fraud or swindling,” its abashed manager told state broadcaster NRK.
It all began when allegedly over-zealous telephone sellers arranged large deliveries of toilet paper to the homes of mostly elderly people. Shortly thereafter came a bill in the mail with demands for payment, for a product the elderly claimed they had not ordered.
Police in both Southwestern Norway and Finnmark in the far north received so many calls from worried recipients of the unwanted toilet paper that they issued a warning on Wednesday of a possible scam. Police advised against accepting the toilet paper or paying the bills that followed it, and to contact them if the situation became “uncomfortable.”
It eventually emerged that all the toilet paper was coming from Drago, whose leader Torry Drange blamed the deliveries on “some sellers who have been a bit creative.” He told NRK that if customers receive goods they don’t want “then we haven’t done our job. We haven’t been clear enough.”
He asked unhappy customers to contact the company so that the situation can be rectified. He said Drago had also taken steps to make sure such deliveries aren’t made again. Svein-Erik Jacobsen of the Finnmark Øst Police District said the company has been given a deadline in which to follow up what they’ve now promised. “If they don’t, we’ve told those complaining that they can file charges,” Jacobsen told NRK.
newsinenglish.no staff
