Seth Godin shows us what happens when companies lie

Seth Godins blog gives us all a timely reminder of what can happen when businesses lie to get clients. In this case they unfortunately rang Seth Godin who has god-knows how many 100,000 of followers including me.

Now what happens next in this saga is I and many others will mention Seths blog post in our our blog thus spreading Seth’s orginal post. I also posted a link to his post on Twitter which at the time of writing this post has about 2000 followers….

Then of course Google and others come along and index the whole thing! Can you see how the Internet is now the post powerful way to spread news.

The banal brazenness of telescammers

I got a call a few weeks ago from a telemarketer at Premier Impressions. (Her number is 800 778 6304). She told me she was selling ads for a free directory being published by my local library. Actually, first she said she was calling from “Westchester County,” but when pressed, said she was working with the County, and then when pressed further, acknowledged that she was working with the local library. I was Googling and taking notes the whole time. I told her I was concerned about her approach, and that I was going to write a story about what she was doing. I even read to her from a website complaining about stuff like this her firm had done in the past.

Well, I know the folks at the local library and asked who she was working with. She told me the head of the library’s name (!) and I said I’d check with her and call back. The telemarketer insisted on giving me her full name and number so that after I checked, I could call her back and do business.

You’ve already guessed this: My library had never heard of these guys. But plenty of other organizations have. I called the company for comment, was transferred to their parent company and they refused to comment.

I’m just astonished by this organization. Astonished that the telemarketer would be willing to do this all day–defrauding small businesses in the name of a local charity or institution. Astonished that a company in the US can do this for years and years without someone shutting them down. Most of all, amazed at how trivial the whole thing is. Drip, drip, drip it apparently ends up with enough money on the table for people to sacrifice their ethics.