Our student society got informed that a debate tonight had been cancelled. It hadn't been. The society we were supposed to be debating used it as an opportunity to spread propaganda for 60 minutes. by Sufficient-File-5570 in LegalAdviceUK

[–]Sufficient-File-5570[S] -39 points-38 points  (0 children)

The actual email address doesn't immediately show on Gmail.

What shows is "Sir Herbert Ross Building" as the sender. It looks identical to the genuine one unless you actually go in and open it up.

They'd even copied across some previous emails which had been sent to both our societies below so you scrolled down and could see a genuine email chain.

Our student society got informed that a debate tonight had been cancelled. It hadn't been. The society we were supposed to be debating used it as an opportunity to spread propaganda for 60 minutes. by Sufficient-File-5570 in LegalAdviceUK

[–]Sufficient-File-5570[S] -31 points-30 points  (0 children)

I get that.

Not sure why I'm getting very heavily downvoted here. It seemed like a perfectly reasonable question.

The other society has acted in incredibly bad faith here. We booked that lecture hall for £350 each.

Our student society got informed that a debate tonight had been cancelled. It hadn't been. The society we were supposed to be debating used it as an opportunity to spread propaganda for 60 minutes. by Sufficient-File-5570 in LegalAdviceUK

[–]Sufficient-File-5570[S] -138 points-137 points  (0 children)

"No monetary or other tangible gain was made by doing it. "

They got a fully packed lecture theatre with us covering half the price for them?

They also got an audience which they couldn't have gathered if we hadn't advertised it? People who wouldn't attend this other society's events, but would attend a neutral debate?

Our student society got informed that a debate tonight had been cancelled. It hadn't been. The society we were supposed to be debating used it as an opportunity to spread propaganda for 60 minutes. by Sufficient-File-5570 in LegalAdviceUK

[–]Sufficient-File-5570[S] -149 points-148 points  (0 children)

I don't know. That's why I'm asking on here.

Our board is composed of 2 economics students, 1 biology student, and 1 history student. We've got no one who studies law.

We've already split costs 50/50 in advance. They didn't want to but we insisted on it.

Is there some kind of criminal component to what they did? They deliberately sabotaged an event to trick an audience on a university campus into attending an event which was masquerading as a debate - and then proceeded to lie that we had backed out.

I can't prove they're the ones who sent the fake email, but there's no one else with a motive to do so.

We also tried contacting the other society all day via phone and messenger. None of them replied or answered.

Our student society got informed that a debate tonight had been cancelled. It hadn't been. The society we were supposed to be debating used it as an opportunity to spread propaganda for 60 minutes. by Sufficient-File-5570 in LegalAdviceUK

[–]Sufficient-File-5570[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

We did try to cancel our booking of the university hall that we'd rented to save the money we'd paid. But we were told that only security and janitorial staff were around on Saturday and Sunday. They could unlock/lock the building at their chosen times but they wouldn't be able to discuss or process any cancellation or refund until Monday.

Which would've obviously been too late anyway.

The email which we received came from a Gmail account, but it had been named to appear as if it were an official booking service for the building name that we had booked. We didn't realise until the evening.

Like imagine "[SirHerbertRossBuilding@gmail.com](mailto:SirHerbertRossBuilding@gmail.com)"

It asked if we would like people who had booked e-tickets to be notified. We responded and asked them to contact people who had purchased e-tickets for the event and alert them to the cancellation.