I take quite a few unusual calls a day (I work as an executive assistant), and had wondered about the purpose of the magazine calls we receive - usually asking for information confirmation.
They want confirmation on a executive still being with the company (the person they are sending the magazine to) and the company address. This is all public information, up on our company website.
I follow the path of ‘I cannot, I have the knowledge of an earthworm, please visit our website’.
Googling this and scam shows that there are scams out there, wanting to record a call, alter it and then try to force payment. Sometimes dipping into an individuals bank account or credit card.
This does not apply, as such information would never be given out.
When I was a newbie assistant and answered questions out of a sense of Minnesota politeness, the end of the question session had an extremely odd question – eye color. My eye color. That can’t be right.
Are ALL of these scams?
Even the calls from the magazines the company wouldn’t mind continuing receiving? There are a few industry related magazines that employees read.
Most of those advertiser-supported and industry-specific magazines need to audit their subscribers once a year to confirm that the people who receive it are qualified or still exist.
Ultimately, it’s less for the mailroom to throw out when people leave the company, and more importantly, the advertisers want to know that their money is being spent on people who might actually buy their stuff.
The wierd question at the end is supposed to be some sort of validation that the subscription people actually talked to a person, rather than being lazy and just clicking “yes” to all the boxes.
I receive a fair number of trade magazines at work. The goofy questions are so an independent auditor can verify that you really want the magazine. The auditor will take a sampling of the subscribers and try to verify the information taken when they signed you up for the magazine. The advertisers in the magazines want to know that the magazines are going to someone that wants it and will therefore see the ads instead of throwing out the magazine.
When the scammer finally gets thru to the higher up, they’ll say something like, “That Lady of the Lake sure has pretty green eyes.” or some such to try to indicate that they actually know someone. It’s a common sales technique to try to bypass a customer’s psychological defenses.
I can personally verify that these calls are to verify subscriptions to trade publications so that circulation numbers can be certified. Advertising sales are based on circulation, not only numbers but demographics. How can I confirm this? I once worked for a trade magazine publishing company and made those calls myself. Southern Pulp and Paper, anyone? Southern Office Supply? Southern Jeweler? What about Adweek?
The main scam of that nature that I’ve seen here are those mailings that ask that the company pays to make sure our address is listed correctly in the fake yellow pages.
Well, and those faxes for the boss from Nigeria, but I enjoy those…
a lot of the questions, such as ones on what you are responsible for purchasing, are no doubt designed to convince advertisers that decision makers read the magazine.
My title is one which seems to get confused with another field entirely. I have gotten calls about subscribing to free magazines in this field. When I tell the caller I don’t really work in that area, he or she usually tries to get me to take the subscription anyhow. I’m not sure if they are reading from a script without that option or if they get paid based on how many subscriptions they give away. Some of them seem close to tears about me not being interested.
Ditto for on-line reminders. To stop getting them and calls, I sometimes just renew using the electronic option. I prefer the dead tree version for things I actually read, but I don’t feel guilty about trashing bits instead of recycling paper.
So, I think that a lot of mags are desperate to keep their subscriber base up.
I’ve never gotten one of your type of calls - but I get tons of renewal/new subscription calls. If the OP is getting lots of these, I suspect they are for subscriptions and not for verification. I’d guess that having an exec as a subscriber is worth extra brownie points to the advertisers.
I have definitely had this as well (though not tears - arguments).
The exec. they have been calling for is not remotely near that area (his title just sounds like he is.)
I’ve sent them to the right area, but they keep coming back…and every now and then I get a guy who argues with me aggressively that it IS my bosses department etc…bah…
