Hello,
I've posted this in the primary school section already, because my children are at a primary school, however it's only had one reply. I think that might be partly because Vivo Miles are actually designed for secondary schools amd so most people on that forum won't have come across it yet.
My son's school just started the Vivo Miles scheme this year. I was VERY surprised when he told me he had bought a raffle ticket with his Vivo Miles this week. I checked, and indeed they do hold raffles for the children. Why am I surprised? Well, it is illegal for under 16s to buy raffle and lottery tickets. Maybe this is just about legal as the children are using their Vivo Miles to buy the raffle ticket, but the Miles still equate to a cash value, which comes out of school budget. So, is this legal or not? And if it is legal, is it moral? I think it's sailing very close to the wind. My personal opinion is that it is normalising and encouraging gambling. The school is effectively acting as an intermediary for children to buy lottery tickets by doing it through their budget.
I wrote to our Head about it yesterday (no reply yet), left a phone message with her, and also called Vivo Reward Ltds. Vivo Rewards Ltd decided to pull the raffle from our school's options, which is good IMO, but they said it would still be running across other schools. They also said they would be asking their lawyers to check the legality of the raffle. Aside from the legality I asked them to think about the moral position. After all, lottery tickets are not on sale to a children for a reason. In fact, a number of good reasons, which I listed to them.
Vivo Reward Lts must be RAKING it in, as they have well over a million pupils, and each ticket costs 5p, and they run these raffles regularly. The children work hard for points, then throw them away in a lottery. Which they would never be allowed to do at all if they were spending actual cash.
The prize at the moment? An ipad mini. Not sure this is suitable, in all parents eyes, for primary school age children. You can't set adquate parental controls on ipads, only choose to have Safari (web browsing) on or off. The parents on this secondary school forum might have a different idea about the appropriateness of the item, because the children are older, but as I said before, mine are at primary school.
Finally, the last thing I was horrified about (which I only noticed after letter to school and conversation with Vivo Rewards Ltd) was that our school pupils can save up their Miles to buy vouchers to spend with www.firebox.com. The link provided went to a page which sold alcohol and, among other things, jokey inappropriate items such as a 50 Shades of Grey Poster, a book about Zombies, Cannabis Energy Drink and my personal un-favourite 'Maybe you touched your genitals hand sanitiser'. Who is policing the rewards from within the company, at our schools, and in local authorities?
I'm concerned that this is what happens when private companies make profit from children at school.
I wasn't sure I liked the principle of the scheme in the first place, rewarding hard work and effort with material gains, but I know I don't like it now.
My son is 7 and has been exposed to unsuitable, age-inappropriate web pages and gambling.
What is anyone else's experiences of Vivo Rewards Ltd, and do you have any advice to offer?
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Vivo Miles Raffles
21 replies
LCD100 · 11/12/2012 14:32
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