Friday, 26 July 2013

A spam trail

Today, I got a spam from Thomson Data UK offering to sell me their "permission based B2B UK Data". Well, the email address they sent it to is neither B2B (business to business) or has given permission. I was a bit surprised that a company as reputable as Thomson would resort to spamming, so I phoned them up.

The person who answered said "Hello?" That's not really what I'd expect from a big company. I explained that I wanted to make a complaint, and he passed me over to Susan.

I explained to Susan that the email address they'd spammed should not be a spam target; she said she'd take me off their list. Then I asked where they'd got the list they'd just spammed. "The Christian Marketing Company".

It's my experience that any company that names itself after a religion, is highly suspect, and I told her this. She said that she'd had a lot of complaints about this spam exercise, and she was trying to get a refund from The Christian Marketing Company.

Then I called Thomson Local, the people who I'd thought Thomson Data UK were part of. I have to emphasise, they didn't say that they were part of the large, well-known group, it was entirely my fault for jumping to the conclusion that because they had the same name (Thomson) and were in the same business, that they would be part of the same company. The person I spoke to at Thomson Local, at first thought that Thomson Data UK was indeed part of Thomson Local, but on checking, they found that the part of Thomson Local that sells email addresses, isn't called Thomson Data UK. So I gave her the phone number of Thomson Data UK and left her to take whatever action that Thomson Local thinks is appropriate.

Next, I Googled The Christian Marketing Company. Google found it easily, but when I clicked to their web site, they turned into "Most High Marketing". On their web site they say "we aim to work in an honest and morally upright manner at all times". Well, that's good to hear. Their phone number is 0161 838 5820. I called, but I got a recorded message offering to call me back. I left my number.

 ... later ... they called me back. Apparently,  "Most High Marketing" is not "The Christian Marketing Company".

1 comment:

  1. Yo, Dude,

    Thats my marketing approach!! Anyway, just a quickie, I googled Christian Marketing Group, I didnt find an obvious page, there was a face book page, but no company :( I have found a company called Most High Marketing, based in Manchester, they seem bona fide!!