The Duchess of Sussex is slowly launching American Riviera Orchard, and as I’ve said before, I’m just as interested in the process as the products she will sell. I don’t think Meghan does anything half-assed, but I do wonder about the strategy at play, especially with the soft-launch of the Instagram account and, just this week, the small-batch jam gift baskets to friends. I guess my point is that Meghan and her ARO team seem to know what they’re doing, and I would assume that they didn’t buy an “American Riviera Orchard” UK domain name on purpose. Which left americanrivieraorchard.uk up for grabs. Some Deranger bought that domain name and redirected it to a page asking for donations to the Trussell Trust:
The Duchess of Sussex’s new lifestyle brand has been hijacked by a fan of the Princess of Wales. The UK domain name for her new business, American Riviera Orchard, has been purchased by someone who has linked it to the Trussell Trust charity.
While the main American web link is still operating as normal, those clicking on the link americanrivieraorchard.uk are directed to a page asking for donations for the UK-based anti-poverty charity and community food bank.
The home page states: “Forgiveness. Permission. Please donate to the Trussell Trust.” A message on the JustGiving page reads: “not meghan. hope meghan wouldn’t mind. thoughts with catherine. X”
It goes on to explain the premise of the Trussell Trust, which provides practical support to those who cannot afford essentials and campaigns for a future where nobody will require emergency food services.
The page says that it is aiming to raise £1,000. As of Thursday morning, it had amassed £56 in donations.
A Trussell Trust spokesman said: “It’s not something that we have any knowledge of.”
“As of Thursday morning, it had amassed £56 in donations.” *sad clown noise* Yikes, what a self-own by that Deranger. Made worse by the fact that the princess they worship isn’t even the patron of The Trussell Trust, and The Trussell Trust wants nothing to do with any part of this scheme – I’m including some of their tweets below. How pathetic is this story all around? Like… these desperados think it’s some kind of gotcha that Meghan didn’t buy an ARO.uk domain name, and they thought they could really own Meghan by redirecting the site to a charity… and they only got a measly £56 in donations. Please. I would laugh but this is so embarrassing for everyone in the UK.
Hi, we are not associated with this website domain. We weren’t aware of the website prior to it going live and have not had any direct contact with the person who set it up.
The Princess of Wales is not our patron.
We’re grateful to people who are able to support our work to…
— The Trussell Trust (@TrussellTrust) April 18, 2024
Hi, we are not associated with this website domain. We weren’t aware of the website prior to it going live and have not had any direct contact with the person who set it up. We’re grateful to people who are able to support our work to end the need for food banks in the UK.
— The Trussell Trust (@TrussellTrust) April 18, 2024
Photos courtesy of Instar, Backgrid, Avalon Red.
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- ** RIGHTS: ONLY UNITED STATES ** London, UNITED KINGDOM – Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Pippa Middleton, at the women’s Final on day twelve of the Wimbledon Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, 13th July 2019. Pictured: Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle BACKGRID USA 13 JULY 2019 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Queens, NY – Meghan, Duchess of Sussex takes in the Serena Williams vs Bianca Andreescu women’s final tennis match at the US Open. Pictured: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex BACKGRID USA 7 SEPTEMBER 2019 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Queens, NY – Meghan, Duchess of Sussex takes in the Serena Williams vs Bianca Andreescu women’s final tennis match at the US Open. Pictured: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex BACKGRID USA 7 SEPTEMBER 2019 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Queens, NY – Meghan, Duchess of Sussex takes in the Serena Williams vs Bianca Andreescu women’s final tennis match at the US Open. Pictured: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex BACKGRID USA 7 SEPTEMBER 2019 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- North America Rights – London, UK -20190713- The Duchess of Cambridge, the Duchess of Sussex, and Pippa Middleton Matthews in the royal box during the 12th day of the Wimbledon Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. -PICTURED: Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle -PHOTO by: INSTARimages.com Disclaimer: This is an editorial, rights-managed image. Please contact INSTAR Images for licensing fee and rights information at sales@instarimages.com or call +1 212 414 0207. This image may not be published in any way that is, or might be deemed to be, defamatory, libelous, pornographic, or obscene. Please consult our sales department for any clarification needed prior to publication and use. INSTAR Images reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this material. If you are in violation of our intellectual property rights or copyright you may be liable for damages, loss of income, any profits you derive from the unauthorized use of this material and, where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or any statutory damages awarded For images containing underage children: Be advised that some Countries may have restricted privacy laws against publishing images of underage children. Inform yourself! Underage children may need to be removed or have their face pixelated before publishing
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- Wimbledon London UK 13/07/2019 Photo credit: Peter van den Berg Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, seen smiling and enjoying Serena Williams (USA) and Simona Halep (ROU) playing their womenÄôs singles final match against on Centre Court.
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- Wimbledon London UK 13/07/2019 Photo credit: Peter van den Berg Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, seen smiling and enjoying Serena Williams (USA) and Simona Halep (ROU) playing their womenÄôs singles final match against on Centre Court.
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- Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, smiles during her visit at Smart Works charity in West London, Britain, January 10, 2019.
Seems like a good cause. Maybe people will ignore the ARO UK domain and give their attention to the trust directly.
Agreed. And as of this morning (US time) it had more than 8,000 pounds. A worthy cause, and if they want to give in her name, no complaints from me. Just keep Meghan’s name out your mouth. From Meghan’s own mouth, you don’t have to hate one because you like the other.
Definitely not the worst thing. It could e been bought by someone who directed it to some Meghan bashing site or porn or something.
What a horrible thought. Thank goodness that who ever did it at least did it so it benefitted a good cause, but it was very wrong to do it. I doubt that it would cause Meghan problems as she is unlikely to want to sell to Britain anyway.
MTE about the porn site, it’s fortunate that it was directed to an altruistic cause but Meghan’s team needs to exert tighter control because they may not be so lucky if this happens again. And this was not done with good intention.
I love how the charity went out of their way to distance themselves from kate. At this point she is more a liability to a charity than helpful.
Yes because they found this behavior disturbing just like we did. Shadowing someone’s launch of jam this way is being called out loud and clear by this charity who do not wish to block Meghan’s decent endeavors.
This doesn’t sound entirely bad to me? Yes, this person should never have snagged Meghan’s name, but this actually sounds like a good cause and something Meghan would support. I don’t find myself mad at it and hope that Trussell Trust has gotten more name recognition and is able to help more food-insecure people.
Now that site is linked to a charity but who knows what’s next? And you can trust if Meghan complained about this she would get blasted for “not supporting a charity”. It was a shitty thing to do and it was done maliciously.
@ML … But does that really excuse someone’s bad behavior? And who knows what other sites this ARO UK domain has been redirected to? Personally, I hope Meghan sues them to shut down the site.
This sounds like a project Meghan wouldn’t mind sponsoring, but she is no longer a working royal and the British people can’t just co-op her and/or her name because it brings donations to a worthy cause … or out of spite.
Aside from that, the royal family will only find a way to punish the Sussexes even more at this proof that Meghan’s name has more cachet than all of their appearances to raise awareness and funding.
Don’t forget that the original buyer of the domain can easily release it or more likely, resell it (for a high cost). And then it could be linked to something terrible. I doubt the person who bought it is going to keep paying for it year after year. I can’t believe M’s people didn’t foresee this. Even if you don’t plan to sell in the UK, you definitely buy the domain to park it so it can’t be used. This is 101 level knowledge, and given the hateon for M in the UK, I can’t believe her team let this slide.
MsIam, Yvette, and Fergus, Thanks for the sanity check. You are right: the potential for misuse is a huge threat even though this specific action was not. I’m still glad that the Trussell Trust got showcased since the numbers of food insecure people are rising, but you’re right about the potential for misuse.
Derangers on twitter were claiming this had nothing to do with Meghan and was totally about “Catherine.”
They’re so delusional they skipped right over the brand hijack, which is literally spelled out for them in the tweets and website domain. They had to steal attention from Meghan in an effort to do something in “Catherine’s” name and they don’t see how pathetic that is.
Anyway good for the food bank, but this is absolutely malicious. For those who don’t understand that, kindly give away something to your worst enemy that you’ve worked hard on for years after being tortured, only to have it used to elevate someone who criticized your unborn child.
It is a good cause which is why this is so weird – like, way to stick it to Meghan by encouraging donations to a charity? oh no, you really showed her!!!!!
That’s exactly it. She thought she was getting one over on Meghan by doing what Meghan has been doing her whole life. That’s not sticking it to Meghan or her business. They continue to try and put Meghan in a bad light by having malicious intentions which in turn shows how exceptional Meghan is to them in comparison. A person who is genuinely a good person would have donated and encouraged donations by not including Meghan’s business with malicious intent and had money go towards a charity that is associated to the woman she claims to like. Her only including Kate at the end was obviously just an afterthought showing she doesn’t care about Kate. Then not including something linked to Kate or cancer makes it even more obvious that this person doesn’t care about Kate or doing anything in honor of her.
Yep, this is where I am too. It sounds like an organization Meghan would have been happy to be affiliated with when she was in England. It’s so strange that the derangers keep bleating about “Catherine” when, in fact, nothing they do is because they love the PoW. Just own that you can’t stand Meghan, and you don’t even know why.
You would think that was their agenda to actually help a charity, but most of the donations are derangers saying terrible things about Meghan. Meghan is too nice! If these MF-er’s are taking money for a charity that has nothing to do with them, they are using Meghan’s name to commit fraud! They all need their money returned & the site shut down!
This is FRAUD. You can’t just set up a site based on another person copyrighted business name and summon donations on it. Follow up articles today have now said the charity probably wont be able to keep that money because of this; this was not done for a good cause. It was done to illicit a reaction from Meghan and then attack her for it(thankfully she continues to pay that island dust).
Question: Is the charity actually receiving all the money directly through the hijacked site, or can the crazed Kate-fan access funds?
@CARA. From info at JustGiving, it states that the money goes to the bank account of the page owner (that setup the funding page). So no. JustGiving will not wire the money raised directly to Trussell Trust. Who knows if that person will transfer the whole amount of donated money to TT?
The webpage redirect does NOT go to any site controlled by the Trussell Trust. It goes to an online social platform, JustGiving.com, where someone has set up an account, supposedly for the purpose of raising funds for the Trussell Trust. As @Square2 says above, info at JustGiving indicates money goes to the bank account of the person who set up the funding page, NOT to the person or entity that was ostensibly used as the reason for setting up said funding page.
Fees charged in various countries by JustGiving.com can be found by clicking around the site. They can also share info about donors with charities if they set up their own funding pages. They used to charge charities fees to join, but made those fees voluntary in 2019. According to Wikipedia, the UK based, JustGiving, was acquired by US based Blackbaud in October 2017.
In 2023, the SEC charged Blackbaud for misleading statements about donor personal data that was exfiltrated in a ransomware attack. And in 2024, the FTC made Blackbaud “delete unnecessary data” and “boost safeguards to settle charges its lax security practices led to data breach.” According to data at 10AM PDT, funds raised ostensibly for Trussell Trust on the JustGiving redirect from ARO.UK amount to £19,595 from 1458 supporters. The primary purpose for the average £13 donation seems to be to talk trash about “Morons in Montecito” while praising the ostensibly “working” BRFCo members, exclusive of Consort Camilla.
The over the top adoration of Kate by her fans is truly off the wall.
Do they adore Kate or just hate Meghan? If they adored Kate surely they would have had a fundraiser for a cancer charity in her name. Not dragged Meghan’s name and business into it?
i think they hate Meghan more than they love/like Kate. They are never able to raise money in K’s name.
Or at least directed the donation to a charity that Kate was a patron of.
Yes, why can’t they raise money for charity just using Kate’s name and not hate-baiting by using Meghan’s new business. It’s such a bad look.
I expect the real problem for them is the mixed race heirs to the throne, or perhaps they simply don’t like the fact that as they get older Meghan will wear better than Kate because of the mix.
They don’t even like Kate. If they did they would care more about her and her charities. They never raise money for her charities or care about her “work” They don’t even know what she is a patron of.
I blame the bot farms. Remove the spam bot army and I really doubt many people care one way or another about any royal since QE died.
Over the years I’ve seen very little “adoration” for Kate from her “fans”, before Meghan came on scene most were frustrated by her lack of work and substance. Now, Kate is merely a well shod stick with which to beat Meghan with, no more, no less.
In comments sections kate was once called work shy . Then later the derangers called Kate classy and dignified while criticizing Meghan and the William chose well comments started.
I remember those days when Kate was constantly attacked for being lazy and for shocking her bum off pretty consistently at public events with skirt up “mishaps” that she never addressed with weights in her hem, like every other public woman does.
There’s nothing inspirational about Kate that other than her being “middle class” and raising her family up via marriage, a spirit which the British class system doesn’t respect in American Duchesses, but somehow monarchists are now claiming is so great, as her mom claims Kate is “royal.”
I don’t see any adoration for K I only see hate aimed at Meghan. This was deliberate and hateful they not only dragged Meghan’s new business venture into a mess but they are using a charity as a target also. I hope the charity gets some funding, but the chaos they have been put through for someone’s racist hate is just wrong.
The Trussell Trust are clearly not happy about it, they realise that it is driven by hate, not by love, it has put them in a difficult position.
If Meghan’s detractors have to use her name and that of her business to generate interests into donating to a charity , then it says more about her detractors than Meghan.
They know Kate hasn’t got the clout to generate such interest but will use the interest in Meghan ( whom they claim to hate but really are jealous) to redirect online traffic to a different site because they realise that Meghan’s supporters will give to a worthy cause.
This is them just riding the coat tails of Meghan even though it is some what disingenuous and fraudulent.
I’d love it if Meghan killed them with kindness and Archewell donated a couple thousand to the Trust.
What a great idea
What brilliant shade that would throw! Plus the derangers would probably never do it again for fear of making Meghan look good, again
This is a good idea.
Meghan is supporting charities of her choice, the BRF are billionaires, the Sussexes have to work to pay for security, housing and their family.
That sounds like something Meg would do and is a great idea. Meg seems the type to make lemonade out of lemons or in her case lemon jam.
Nah! Let the derangers and royalists raise the funds. Meghan should pay it dust.
It would be a mistake for her to even acknowledge this. She doesn’t need to enter the fray of online trolls. That’s like acknowledging a stalker in hopes that they will go away.
Agreed, wholeheartedly.
I could see Meghan doing this for the charity, maybe with the stipulation that it not be announced publically. They are also a victim here, thru no fault of their own.
If it’s true that the charity won’t be keeping the money because it was donated under false pretenses as a commentator said above, I wouldn’t be surprised if Meghan quietly donated that lost amount. It’s a worthy organization that lost a good sum of money because of these nut jobs.
i’m not sure why those fans keep trying to gather donations for different charities at this point. Kate fans are there to hate Meghan, not to support charities.
I am staunchly pro-Sussex but the Sussex Squad on The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter needs to stop attacking the Trussell Trust for this. They have clearly stated they have nothing to do with this and if someone still chooses to donate, that’s on the donor, but the organization cannot control the actions of some stranger who is completely unaffiliated with them. They don’t run the internet. The most they can do is file a complaint with GoDaddy and JustGiving, but given the work they do and the fact that they’re a charity, I don’t blame them for wanting donations. It’s how they do. Oh, and all the vitriol has spurred donations, they’re over 8K now.
This. I get loving the DoS but some have lost the plot. Many don’t exhibit the kindness and graciousness of their fave.
Before you shape your lips to say one word about the Sussex Squad and their demeanor, stop.
The Sussex Squad doesn’t even come close to the poison spewed by Kate’s fans. Not even close. There weren’t any Sussex fans hanging outside Kate events TO STAB HER IN THE STOMACH! Where are all the SS posts calling for the entire Wales line to be slaughtered? Lynched? Eliminated?
The audacity to get on Beyoncé’s internet and try to make an issue of the SS behavior when the Sussexes had to move an ocean and a continent away from William, Kate and the rest of the royals and the royalists because of the abuse they received. ABUSE THAT CONTINUES TO THIS DAY.
@Lola, THANK YOU! I could have not said it any better than you did.
Hear! Hear! and where is the proof that these people are SS?
It’s a double-edged sword for sure. A lot of the mistreatment and double standards that Meghan and Harry experienced / still experience has been amplified by those who want to defend them on social media, but they have also amplified a lot of stuff that would have died out or people wouldn’t have heard about. That’s the tricky part about parasocial relationships, sometimes the boundary between what’s appropriate and what isn’t gets blurred the further you get into it. Even here where I think most people are fairly even handed, you’ll have comments on some posts where I’m like you know you’re not their life coach right?
@Dee(2): Absolutely right! I do a lot of work with consumer brands on messaging and I always have to remind them about online communities – these are not employees, they will say and do what they want. Some times it will be helpful to your company, sometimes it won’t – proceed with caution.
I haven’t noticed negativity directed towards the charity so much as towards whoever bought the domain just to be an asshole but I mute a lot of people.
That’s all I’ve seen as well, but I block any and all abusers of the Sussexes, , so I guess it’s not shocking I’m not seeing it.
I’m not in SS, but If they hadn’t done that, no attention would have been raised. I didn’t see anyone being vitriolic toward the charity, just tagging them to raise awareness.
It’s not SS fault that a deranged did this, after all, and the entire point of the SS is to raise awareness of mistreatment and to amplify goodness of their fave.
I saw a lot of SS fans criticize the charity because they were not going to return the donations. Even though they had nothing to do with it they made a statement that the donations did not violate whatever standard they have for accepting them.
@barbmill I missed that, and I literally ran through the trending topics which were all related to this. I saw TT reply to one that was pointing out the history of how the ARO UK site was taken by a hater.
I’m sure SS have gone overboard sometimes but given the hate they’re battling every single day against someone who did nothing wrong, I’m not here to blame SS for pushing back, when people are defending the abusers.
Even here, people are defending the deranger saying it’s not so bad. It makes me sad that people have little understanding of how much effort goes into a brand and having it stolen/hijacked in the name of someone who had concerns about your baby’s skin color, even for a cause you might support, is not okay.
@BARB MILL could you please put up the link please, because I have not seen any of this
That’s any fandom though sadly, there’s always a toxic branch when someone has a huge following. I think the best comparison would be Swifties and there’s probably a lot of crossover with the Sussex Squad. I have seen deranged Sussex Squad members post weird stuff on Twitter. Just right now Swifites are harassing Kayla Nicole because she posted something pretty innocuous about not being able to absorb so many new great albums being released and I think she specifically mentioned Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter. Swifties of course saw this as an attack on Taylor (since I guess she didn’t mention her) and went after her again and Kayla finally posted people to stop harassing her. Luckily people don’t seem to harass Harry or Meghan’s exes in the same way but some of the stuff they post about Kate and William (and I am NOT a Kate and William fan) I’m just like who has the time for this?!
You need to go look at the comments on the fundraiser webpage. The majority of donators think that the king and the princess of Wales are affiliated with this trust and they’re not. Many commenters are also under the impression that the money will be used to purchase the jams, which I guess they think are going to the homeless?
When it charity lets itself be hijacked this way, it opens itself up to an investigation means, and methods used for fundraising, including misappropriation of the use of the princess of wales’ name.
I’m not in the Sussex Squad but I have not seen abuse towards the charity itself. It’s also highly disingenuous to pretend Sussex fans caused this problem when Meghan etc were minding their own business in the first place when the brand was hijacked.
I would not go so far as to criticize the charity outright but it’s definitely a bad look for their own organization if they continue to accept donations which are the result of bullying essentially, without them remarking on that. As others have stated, people are donating because they still believe Kate and Charles are affiliated and benefiting from that, so the Trust should be speaking louder on that point. It’s one thing for a charity to have one person or another as its patron, but to be seen to be pulled into tabloid gossip is an issue. It’s why Kate Robertson of One Young World had to backtrack very quickly in 2021 after criticizing the Sussexes for “hurting the Queen” – as a private citizen she’s entitled to her negative opinion but as head of a charity and representative of that charity she is not.
Yeah this makes me question her team. This is something that should have been thought of before, especially with her exposure. Smaller unknown businesses do this. Myself for example, I am launching a business and you buy up the other domains, not that you will use them, but it’s a very simple thing to do and the oversight of this makes me really side eye her team.
I hope this wakes them up and they run a tighter ship
@Xeni: This is not a big deal. In fact it’s probably more publicity for Meghan in the long run. When Archewell was announced some deranger bought an domain and linked it to Kanye’s song gold digger. Where is that website now?
And the absurd part is Meghan earned millions through her career as actress. She is so not a gold digger.
Agreed. People give weight to a lot of stuff that just doesn’t last. Part of it is just the natural news cycle, but a lot of it is the constant bombardment of things from the British media about Harry and Meghan stuff dies out really quickly. I mean in the past 18 months alone you’ve heard how this is the end for them because of, Spare, the documentary, the queen dying, their children not having titles, Bill Simmons, various books by Royal commentators, the Heritage Foundation, South Park, losing Frogmore, Harry’s lawsuits, etc. The story from their former private secretary didn’t even have legs of more than a day. A website redirect that goes to a charity is not a huge deal.
You’re absolutely right @xeni. At this point this shouldn’t be happening and since it has happened in the past ( someone bought up a Sussex website in 2020 and when you clicked it redirected you to gold digger by Kanye west ). Her team should absolutely run a tighter ship because this is her livelihood. The whole energy coming from ARO seems lackadaisical to me
While these points are valid, I think we can all appreciate that Meghan is in a unique position that no one but Diana has ever been in. At this point it’s not about generating publicity but managing it, so I think it’s fine to slow walk her brand launch. Oprah made ONE instagram post about a gift basket that Meghan sent with products from Clevr and it sold out in minutes. The company has since experienced incredible growth. Meghan uses a teacup in a zoom video and people buy the entire set. I can’t think of anyone in the world with that kind of selling power. Generating interest isn’t an issue.
Meghan also faces unique supply chain challenges because her followers and critics alike hold her to an impossible moral standard. Who the hell looks at a jam and then instantly wonders which orchard the lemons are from? If it turns out that unbeknowst to Meghan, the orchard employs migrant workers from Mexico, people will go absolutely apeshit and express their disappointment that Meghan didn’t make sure everyone wasn’t getting a living wage when it is a well known fact that NO migrant worker in US agriculture is EVER paid a living wage. Is she supposed to stop making jam entirely and recall her products? Meghan, as a Black businesswoman, will be held accountable for shit that’s completely beyond her control, AND be expected to fix those problems, while simultaneously make unfounded moral judgments of her character. Moreoever, they expect her to give her hard earned money away. We see this happen again and again with everything she does.
Em, I think lackadaisical isn’t representative of what we’ve seen so far with American Riviera Orchard. Obviously, they weren’t concerned about this–it’s happened before with Archewell and probably shrugged it off. If no one amplified this, no one would really know about it.
If a charity can get donations–and a food bank is a really great place to donate–so much the better. I think people will know that Meghan is the one who got them to click on the web address–this isn’t about Kate.
Maybe, she and her team don’t care? She is gonna make her money either way and it isn’t like she doesn’t get negative articles anyway. Why should she care what the clowns do in an island far far away from her mansion? I know, I wouldn’t.
I’d like to think that she’s happy that the Trussell Trust is getting donations.
@Amy Bee, I agree. They think they did something. Oh no, they are gonna donate money to charity to spite Meghan. What is she gonna do now? They are really delulu.
I genuinely wish you luck with your launch, but can we all agree that the best practices for us normies launching a business are considerably different than they are for one of the most famous women in the world?
Meghan doesn’t need to worry about branding or web traffic, but she does have some extremely serious safety concerns that I’m sure we can’t even really comprehend. I mean, maybe this was bait, and Meghan has a team of cyber experts investigating all the IPs involved and linking them to other harassment. Same with the email sign-ups.
Bottom line, we really don’t know, but this knee-jerk reaction to immediately question everything Meghan does because it wouldn’t work for the average person is a doomed exercise.
Sunday, questioning what Meghan is doing seems to happen fairly regularly here. We know why when we see who is posting.
@Saucy&Sassy you’re right, but at this point even Meghan fans are frantically nitpicking every single action or inaction. I know those concern trolling from a place of spite or hatred are a lost cause, but especially now with tabloids spinning entire article series about a single twitter comment or baiting squaddies into bad behavior to be made an example of, none of this “concern” actually helps Meghan.
So I guess my point is to those who really do mean well, only Meghan and Harry know the full scope of everything involved here, only Meghan and Harry have seen the full picture. We’re allowed to be nervous or anxious but we really need to stop taking the obvious tabloid bait because it’s only hurting Meghan and Harry even further while helping their abusers. Any “concern” about Meghan’s jam should have been redirected at where the proceeds from Charles’ various jams are going, or any myriad other questions the Windsors have dodged for decades rather than filling the internet with negative speculation about Meghan based on nothing.
I’m sorry, but do you seriously think they need to be woken up with the insight of someone who is buying their first domain?
I wish you well, but it’s an error to project your experience onto a global superstar who owns multiple domains and has a team of lawyers and publicists helping.
I agree with @xenie. It’s a big fail for Meghan’s team. They should have trademarked ARO in countries they planned to have presence before announcing the brand on 3/14. The brand is intellectual property; tangible – name & logo and intangible – values etc… Their vision of ARO was narrow, more like as a local storefront and not in the context of global digital marketing.
No it isn’t. If it had been the “.co.uk” version of the website then I might have agreed. Might. But “.uk” is not something which even crosses most people’s minds.
This. I didn’t even know “.uk” was a thing until now. Who’s going to accidentally type it, you have to know it’s even an option first.
lol. That is how you know that Kate doesn’t have real fans, just haters of H&M. Sussex Squad donates hundred thousand dollars each year for charities because they are made of real people, not bot farms or racist women with dozens of fake accounts.
The derangers should be raising for cancer charities and cancer research. But I’ve always said that some of Meghan’s biggest fans are the derangers. Is the press going to call on Kate’s fans to stop bullying Meghan now?
No, bullying Meghan generates too much advertising revenue.
If I were a charity that found that a group were sppofing a website to generate donations I would ask the owner to take it down. Perhaps Kitty can write a check to replace the less than 100 bucks they raised.
Amyb, someone above said they have 8,000 pounds in donations now. The charity needs the money–the UK need the food banks, so this is really a win for people suffering food insecurity. I think most people click on the web address because of Meghan. That pretty much says it all.
I can’t believe they didn’t forsee this. Would’ve been easy to prevent.
Wow. Perfect proof that all of Kate’s so called fans are only Meghan haters with no true altruistic hearts. A WHOPPING £56 pounds? That contrasted with the hundreds of thousands of dollars raised by Sussex supporters, determined to overcome evil with good by helping others in their names … Smh.
I would be so embarrassed. I remember as well, the ONE lone bouquet of flowers…
Simon Case?
@Pinned and P, Yup! Or Piers Morgan or one of the royal rotas wanting to create news and generate clicks.
Neither man would link it to a charity. And neither has the skills, they’d have to hire someone to do it.
Based on their comments the people donating seem to be a bit obsessed with Meghan’s jam.
Given that the Windsors have a habit of showing up to food banks empty handed, this tactic seems like it blows back on them rather than the Sussexes.
Agreed. Let’s hope this shames the Windsors into doing more.
This has nothing to do with supporting Kate but everything to do with bullying and punishing Meghan and generate clicks and profit for the rotas. I’m guessing that one of the DM rotas line Piers M. bought it to have something to protect their diminishing jobs and profits.
600,000 followers on Instagram is a low numbers?
I think that’s just more evidence of the trend of unrealistic expectations for Meghan and to a much lesser degree for obvious reasons Harry. By any standard for anyone else in business, or Hollywood adjacent What they have achieved in the last 4 years is overwhelming success. Yet you still have people who will nitpick and criticize anything less than record breaking achievement and absolute perfection and appeal to every single person somehow in ethical, moral, business and personal aesthetics. And a lot of this is from “fans”. It’s wild.
Also given Kate’s track record when it comes to food banks (repeatedly showing up empty-handed) it is so much more of a self-own. Like your darling princess doesn’t give a sh*t about people who actually need food banks.
Sidenote : I don’t think Meghan even cares that she didn’t get the UK domain as she probably won’t even try to sell in the UK, so lol.
This shows that the Kate groupies are just like kate herself, not a single original idea between them. In my eyes this is a form of fraud! Obtaining money under false pretences! No wonder the Trussell trust want nothing to do with it. The Go fund me page and all other entities involved in this should shut the donation side down straight away, and leave whoever bought it, Gary /Carol /camzilla some random thoughts 😂with a blank page with just the header!!!!
Finally Megan’s team needs to GET IT’S BLOOMIN ACT TOGETHER, This sort of thing can’t be allowed to stand, and shouldn’t have been allowed to happen!
How sure are we that the donations will be sent to Trussell Trust, not the page owner’s bank account? The WanK’s fans/Meghan haters did not have a good track record of raising fund for either Wails ( but do have incidents of scamming their fellow fans); and now here it does raise some big money, what changed?
About domain names: the simple days of just ***.com or ***.org has gone long time ago. Now anyone can register a domain like ***.*** (eg. celebitchy.xyz or celebitchy.cb). So 🤷
I cannot with the self appointed experts who come out of the woodwork to criticize this woman every time a deranger does something crappy or she does something like… give a jar of jam to a friend.
Get a grip, people!
Hear, hear.
I concur! People are losing their minds.
GoDaddy is a cesspool registrar. It’s impossible to get them to correct or remove domains without evidence of misuse (and you have to be the target).
That’s a really sleazy thing to do and seems kind of fraudy. Even if she has no intention of launching in the UK, Meghan should have bought the domain name there because she knows how obsessed they are with her and everything she does. She saw how nasty some of that crowd was during that funeral walkabout. Anyway, hope her legal team is on it and shuts it down. She needs to buy all the non-US domains, esp. from places like Australia, Canada, etc. The way these people are losing their minds over jam is ridiculous.
from following other small business owner/influencers shipping internationally is hella expensive. Maybe ARO will just ship to the US / domestically as it’s a new and small company. Which is why they didn’t lock down international sites.
At least this person tried to do a good thing, bringing light to a charity. And not cyber squat to blackmail a payment to get it back. I get the feeling if her team asks nicely the person will sign it over. Or maybe I am naive lol.
It would have been nice if they simply opened a site to donate to the charity in Kate’s name. They knew this would lead to attacks on Meghan. I’m glad if it helps people, but helping while attempting to hurt others is never okay. I think Meghan could just use the co.uk sites if needed. Meghan will be okay.
Yeah see, I don’t think this was nice. It was mean-spirited. It makes Kate’s fans look petty and mean. They hijacked a woman’s business venture in Kate’s name. They could have just set up a charity fund in Kate’s name without using Meghan’s name for attention. I actually think this is pretty awful behavior and it taints Kate by association. Cool, the money went to charity but they could have done that without outing themselves as petty mean-girls. But I guess that’s the brand for Kate and her fans and they just reminded the world of that.
I read about the redirect and thought that Meghan’s team bought the site and were using it as a way to highlight different charities anonymously. As a side gig, if you will. At the same time, the .uk part is a bit of poetic backhanded FU, to the UK media about them being commercial and proving a point that service is universal.
Are we sure this isn’t a Sussex fan, Kate hater, or anti- monarchist having a laugh. This makes Kate look bad. Like they need Meg to fundraise.
If they were known to fundraise it wouldn’t be a problem. Neither them nor Kate can get anything rolling.
Kate or carole maybe behind this. Trying to show they have supporters whilst getting in on megs shine
The telegraph is also being really stupid because I don’t know of a single reputable company which uses “.uk” for their companies. They tend to use “.co.uk” instead. Most people would have assumed that the grifter had “hijacked” the .co.uk version of M’s website. If memory serves me right, it’s mainly government or nationally-affiliated organisations which use “.uk”, as in gov.uk or nhs.uk.
A massive self-own indeed. And good on the charity for politely distancing itself. How the heck can this idiot raise funds for a charity in such a manner without first contacting the charity? Scammers gonna scam. They know that M’s supporters tend to donate thousands to charity each year, so they thought they’d hoodwink them into parting with their hard-earned money. They must think genuine Squaddies are idiots.
Does it even make clear WHERE the money is going (how it’s getting there), and without deductions, especially if the charity knows nothing about it?
There’s a reason why H+M supporters arrange with charities so that all monies donated go directly to the charities, not via some dubious middleman.
“They tend to use “.co.uk” instead.”
Having only paid attention to this story with half an ear that perked up my interest. I had assumed it was “.co.uk” Will the BM be as vigorous in finding out who is behind this gambit as they are to breathlessly reporting how much money, that may or may not go to Trussel Trust, is piling up?
They are up to almost 11,000 pounds which is incredible for the charity.
If the charity is actually given that money…
No actually it’s bad that disadvantaged people, especially POCs, get help in a terrible economic climate, just listen to the voices of reason here.
This is disgusting to do. These people have lost their damn minds. Also, how does anyone even know if that money is going to the organization. It’s obviously a middle account and not directly linked to the charity. The person never contacted the charity organization ahead of time to set it up either. Something is not right about all of this.
Julianna, well, the charity will get that money now since the world knows about it. That’s what the charity should focus on: Making sure that their charity is not used to scam people.
I guess they took it literally that they should get out of their Medieval Way of thinking and try to COPY Ms success 😀.
I also read a couple of SM posts that they want to submit mass complaints to the FDA or CA public health for Ms jams. Another stupid idea esp since the jams aren’t even sold to the public yet.
If they want to submit a false report to a govt agency(which is illegal) , that will just get them In real Trouble with US Laws for Lying. They think it’s like writing a bad Amazon review with no consequences 🙄🙄.
Why on earth do they bother, to go to those lengths they must has a screw loose. Same with the visa fuss. It isn’t as if Harry has done any harm, in fact he and Meghan are doing a lot of good though I doubt that Meghan’s campaign against racism goes down well with fanatical republicans.