Am I being unethical if I ask a RR co. in which I hold stock for a free wall calendar? I did that last year and got my (2007) calendar free, but I wasn’t sure if I was pushing my rights as a stock-holder to do so. After all, I am not an employee.
This year, rather than get my undies in a bunch, I just bought a good proprietary calendar devoted to a different RR system.
Is there a general opinion out there as to whether a “peanut” investor like me should try to wangle system maps, calendars, such freebies? (I can tell you flat-out that my level of ownership doesn’t get me invited on any excursions!)
Since these are usually given out as advertising, I say go ahead and ask. If they’re short they’ll say no, but I bet they print a lot for customers and probably enough extras for stockholders.
UP calendars are free for the asking…I used to be signed up for something call UP INFO and got a calendar every yr. until I moved and didnt give them my new addr…I would think, stockholders would get a calender every yr. anyway ! I dont think it unethical at all to ask for one !
It is not very likely a question of ethics, rather what the law, specificly, the tax law will allow. Companies can give away items of nominal value for promotion purposes and it is realistic for a publicly traded company to do things to promote good shareholder relations. As a shareholder, you are one of the partial owners of the business, so consider it an owner’s perq.
Asking certainly isn’t unethical (sorry for the double-negative). Besides, who would consider you pushy or unethical for asking? The receptionist who answers the phone?
GE’s CEO Jeffery Immelt makin’ zillions in salary and incentives while the stock hasn’t made a profit in 7 years, and while their European subsidiaries do business with Iran - that’s unethical.
No prob at all. A month or two ago I researched UP and their Company Store to see what a non-shareholder like me could get. A lot of stuff, including the ten-dollar calendar, which they were not discounting in March to get rid of. Darn!
But I was so taken with their Company Store that I bought a copy of “Union Pacific-opoly” (yes, that’s what they call it) that was on sale, a Hanes “Beefy T” with pocket (and in my oversize), a poster showing all the heritage fleet + UP locomotives, and a D&RGW hat pin.
Good to see that they are making available some of the heritage items fans have been clamoring for years to see! A couple of yrs ago it was IIRC UP’s own traditional badge and a modern slogan or two. Apparently marketing won out over corporate conformity and I couldn’t be happier.
FWIW [#offtopic] but when I contacted KCS last month they had given away all their '08 calendars. Also, some RR co. websites treat the calendars as P.R. giveaways (as has been well witnessed in above posts); others consider it a saleable item; others don’t mention it at all. Since I am a CP holder (don’t be envious, very small amount of common stock!), and since their Company Store (called, curiously “Track 29”) has been closed “temporarily” for a couple of months it seems, I emailed the CP people in Calgary and they were kind enough to send me a hardcopy Annual Report and a system map that had been written on–some sort of ribbon-rail laying was being sketched out would be my hunch. Don’t know if the map is any the more or less valuable for that, but I certainly have no intention of losing it!
You are an owner of the company. If the calendars are given away, you can certainly ask for one and expect to be treated as everyone else.
I am surprized that UP is charging customers $10 for a calendar. That is a bit over the top. My guess is they ask the salesman who then gets them a couple and he “expenses” it. That would keep the distribution down.
BNSF, UP, and NS forwarded investor packages to me last year when asked. Maps are often included, if you ask they will definately include it in the package. BNSF has a great “coal” map which is about 10 years old but shows coal fields and mines plus power plants coded by the type of fuel (coal, nat gas, nuclear, etc). That is an interesting map.
Back in the 60’s as a kid I would write letters to the railroads asking for timetables and other information. My favorite was Santa Fe. They forwarded a two inch thick envelope with passenger timetables, map, a brochure on their freight service, plus fold outs on each type of freight car in their system (flats, gons, hoppers, box, etc) with dimensions, etc. Pretty cool stuff. Still got it in a box upstairs.
Many years ago before computers when I was a kid I wrote to several railroads and asked for information to help me with a school book report and I remember I even wrote to the American Association of Railroads.
The PRR sent me a small booklet and about fifty postcards.
The GN sent me brochures booklets and a wall calendar with a map of their system.
The NP sent me almost the same as the GN.
The NYC sent me nothing.
The UP sent me a calendar brochures, maps of the system at that time and a deck of playing cards.
The SP inundated me with an entire box of goodies delivered by REA. In that box was timetables for every route a calendar, a desk calendar, photos of every passenger train in color and black and white. system maps showing every route and also a deck of playing cards.
The ARR sent me a letter saying I should write to the individual Railroads I am interested in and the same fifty postcards I received from the PRR.
I still have everything that was sent to me and the year was 1955. I even cut the REA insignia from the box the SP items came in and still have it.
Al, it wouldn’t be unethical for you to ask, but it might be unethical for the person giving you the calendar to do so if he/she wouldn’t also extend the same benefit to someone else who was in similar circumstances. Then, if she/he extended that courtesy to all such stockholders, would the Corporation approve? How would she find out?
We just had an employee fired at a Tim Horton’s donut shop out in the Maritimes because she gave a small timbit to a toddler. You can imagine the nightmarish public relations disaster that ensued, with the result that she was rehired to work at another store nearby. The point, though, is that the calendar …I mean, the timbit… was not hers to give. Had she paid for it, it would be a no-brainer. By extending the largess to the toddler, she usurped the privilege of the extension by the rightful owner(s) of the timbit, in addition to what amounted to theft in not placing its value in the till. It’s the same for the calendar.
From prior post: “Al, wouldn’t be unethical for you to ask, but it might be unethical for the person giving you the calendar to do so if he/she wouldn’t also extend the same benefit to someone else who was in similar circumstances. Then, if she/he extended that courtesy to all such stockholders, would the Corporation approve? How would she find out?”
But isn’t that what policies are for? The receptionist (most likely a public-contact or P.R. assistant) who answered should know or find out if anyone who asks get a freebie. I myself would not be in the least upset if their policy simply was never to send out a free one, or not to non-employees, etc.
In point of fact, when I have asked for things (usu. Annual Reports in hardcopy) I go to the RR corp’s website, where there is almost always an “Investor” button to click. I have better luck not clicking the “Shareholder Services” button for a company in which I don’t own shares; those services are usually geared toward stock transfers, etc. But usually there’s also a “Contact Us.” So I send e-mail. That may have the added benefit of not putting someone on the spot as a real-time phone call would.
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May I up the ante a little? Like many of you, I belong to BNSF’s “CRS” (Citizen Response System) program. In the past the co. has really pushed a video tied into the CRS program as useful for small groups. Is it unethical of me to ask to borrow (and it is to be borrowed) said video for an ad-hoc gang of railfans? I doubt any of 'em belong to CRS besides me, and I won’t lie when I make my (written) request.
RRKen, I will try to remember to ask my boss on Monday, but I am 99.999% sure that we didn’t pay anything for the Union Pacific calendars, in the shipping office where I work. We got 4 or 5 in the shipping office which my boss knows that I am a HUGE UP fan and gave me one, I know my company well enough that they would NOT have payed for these. We are a manufacturing company and receive, I would guess 6 tank cars a month of chemicals, delivered by UP, not a huge on line customer by any measure. We get UP calendars every year. I will try to verify that we get them free, and a better estimate of our traffic volume.