Where I work, we get frequent cold calls from callers representing (or purporting to represent) technical publications (either magazines or journals) asking to verify our address and other information “so that <person x> [usually someone important, often the big cheese himself] can continue to receive our free publication.”
Most of the time these sound like real publications, and the people calling do have our addess info correct – they really do seem to be “verifying.” But our info is publicly available, since we’re a public agency, so it doesn’t prove a prior relationship.
Is this some kind of scam?
If it’s a legitimate business practice, please tell me this: why do they ask for the big cheese by name? Why on earth would the Chairman of the entire Federal agency stop what he’s doing to take a cold call to read our ZIP code back to a call center employee? I mean, nobody’s stupid enough to think that’s something you’d bother the big boss about, right?
But that’s what they want. “Can I talk to the Chairman?” evolves into a conversation in which I recite our street address and ZIP code and they’re satisifed. It turns out I’m good enough after all. If ALL they wanted to do was check the currency of their address book, why ask for the big guy at all? It’s ludicrous. It’s like phoning the President of the United States to ask him what time the Post Office closes.
I think the only thing that’s going on is that targeted marketers (and the scam artists that feed them their leads) are looking for names and addresses to be confirmed for mass-mailing lists. I know exactly the kind of calls, and I don’t think I’ve ever once recalled seeing any of the “publications” they claim to represent arriving in our mail. Usually, I just hang up on them … or say “no” and then hang up on them. Either way, the call doesn’t last more than about five seconds.
My assumption when fielding those calls is that it is someone who, for whatever scammish reason, wants to get through to the Big Boss, knows he would never get through telling the truth since real customers can’t, but thinks the person who answered the phone is dumb enough to patch him through if he he drops the “free” word.
I get a free paper subscription to the Industrial Equipment News . They periodically (6 months?) call to confirm that I am actually receiving and want the magazine. I assume that the advertisers who payy all the bills require them to demonstrate that the ads are being viewed by people who buy their products. No one has ever asked for the Chairman though, I’m always sufficient.
There are many trade journals that do give free subscriptions to people in the industry (they make their money with ads). I can’t say that this is the case here, but they also ask to confirm that the subscriber is still in the business and industry (the reason they make money with ads is that they have a targeted audience). As for calling you, your boss could have given that as his contact phone number.
The only way to be sure is to ask him if he’s getting the magazine.
Actually, I work for a company that does just that, and yes, it’s to confirm the addresses in our database for business admail. Ours really are publications, not just advertising junk mail. We send out notices for industry events, the availability of trade publications and white papers.
For the most part “free publications” is probably means “junk mail” and they are updating their database for “addressed admail” (you’ll often see that in the postal indicia).
ETA: You can also request to be removed from our distribution list and your data will have a “leave this person alone!” code added to the database.
I’m pretty sure it is not a scam. I get desperate calls from magazines I used to got but am not interested any longer - enough so I finally give up and tell them to send it. Also, my title at one time was DFT manager, which got interpreted as Drafting manager, which led to calls from all sorts of magazines I had absolutely no interest in. Telling them to take you off their list has seemed to work. Swallowed I get the impression that their subscription base is dropping, enough so to make them lower their ad rates, so they are not quite as interested in qualifying subscribers as they used to be. Is that plausible?
In any case, my experience is that they are folks trying to do their job.
I used to know a recruiter who would pull stuff like that to get names and titles. He’d get the assistant to some guy, relatively high up, and ask for the nmes of all the guy’s oh…say directors. Or senior managers.
“I’m with suchandsuch magazine and John Smith was quoted in the most recent edition. I’d like to send complimentary copies to all of John Smith’s executive commitee, may I have their names please?”
Bam. You’ve just got the names of the top guys on the move. Then you call every one of them to see if they’re interested in leaving.
The critical point the OP is missing is they have a list with thousands of names, all of which look the same.
#3456 on the list is Bob Schmutz from XYZ Roofing in Hoboken. His company has 3 employees. The drone on the phone dials the number & asks for Bob. Since Bob was the guy who answered the phone, they talk and the drone gets the zip code & all is well.
After that call he goes on to #3457, some guy named Bob Gates from a place called DOD in Washington. The drone dials the phone & Sailboat answers. Oddly, the Secretary of Defense is not going to take the call.
Point being, the drone & his company don’t know (or care) about the size, shape, or purpose of the entity they’re calling.
Likely, those pubs making those calls are either BPA or ABC audited circulation publications. Because of this, and the fact that they give the pubs away free, their circulation undergoes periodical fact-checking for auditing purposes. One of those qualifiers is how long it has been since the magazine confirmed that their recipients are still receiving the magazines and did the recipient REQUEST the pub.
Note: A request can be someone calling and confirming that they’re still there and receiving the pub.
It also allows the pub to tell advertisers (and list renters, if they do that) that they have X number of CEOs and whatever and that 90% of them have requested that they received the pub in the last 12 months.
So it could look like this:
12 month qualified 13-24 month 25+ month
Presidents 100 10 0 (hopefully)
May is a big time for this telephonically, generally. Usually it’s better and cheaper to do this via fax, email, or USPS well early of audit-date.
Probably just making sure the guy is still in the same job.
A magazine you start reading makes you want to adverise there…Unless it lands on your subordinate’s desk.
I’m not sure. The company I work for does mostly cross-promotional PR type stuff for non-profits and not one specific kind of magazine or publication.
For example, say a professional organization for people in the public works and infrastructre industry is hosting a fancy convention and special study about sewer systems and how they can solve global warming and cure cancer. This organization already has a big membership who are all Public Works and Waste Management people and they have subscribers to their “Underground Sewer Stuff Magazine” - free to all.
However, in this one special case, they are putting together a special issue and a convention that might be of legitimate interest to civil engineers, architects, meteorologists, oncologists, and Al Gore. A whole slew of people they don’t normally deal with, but who are totally the people who would want to submit articles and share expertise. But if they don’t know about it, they can’t participate.
Our company would help prepare and market the one-off publication for all these folks. This one time, it is relevent to a broader spectrum of professionals than just their regular subscribers and professional members. If our database of Global Warming people is a little old, we have to call and verify some people to make sure the data is current.
It’s a very fine line between spam, advertising, and information in this case.
Most people didn’t fall for it, of course, but if you have a big organization, you also have backup assistants who float (or temps) who don’t know any better. Phishing doesn’t work on most of the population either but there’s that small percentage that make it worthwhile for the scammers. Same thing.
He had all sorts of tricks, it was fascinating talking to him. He also owned one of the first net companies that streamed porn, he made more money with that than he ever did with recruiting.
It’s also away that job recruiters try to get names for top employees that are in demand, that they want for a different company paying them to fill the position.
