These Who's Who directory guys sent me a letter recently "honoring" me with acceptance into their, uhhhhhh whatever it is. So my wife fills out some bio sheet and mails it in. Then she give me a copy and surprises me on my birthday with this supposed honor or whatever. Fine with me, no big deal I think. Then today this guy calls me. He wants to ask me some questions and such to help complete my "bio". So I give him 10 minutes and answer all his stuff. I never do that, I usually consider such stuff telemarketing and I dont waste time on it. Apparently this company makes its money by "honoring" business people by putting them in this book and then selling the book to the "members". Is that not a classic pyramid scheme? What am I missing here? Anyone else ever dealt with these people? I am not going to buy the book so its apparently not costing me anything, but do these guys make lots of money off this stuff? Do people really give a crap if your in this book? Seems pretty silly to me? Terry
Its crap they push on proud parents of high school students, college students doctors lawyers etc, totally bogus and scammish.
Absolute scam. I get them all the time. Nobody gets them except the ones that are foolish enough to pay to be included. File 13.
It's called lead generation....... Your information will generate between $5 and $500 as a lead (over time, depending upon the depth of the info you provided) and God forbid you actually buy something........ Get ready for the pre-ipo/re-fi onslaught! DL
I've been meaning to mention that I'm doing an F-Chat Who's Who. Any F-Chatter who reads this is qualified. Just Pay-Pal me $35 and you will be included in this list that will be distributed to every one who Pay-Pals me the 35 smackers. Send moooola to: [email protected]
The Who's Who directory these days is called Google. It's free!! And, you can opt out of it any time you want.(your phone number anyway)
I had heard the only "legit" thing like that was called "The Social Register." It was/is composed of the very rich in New England and not open to any one with out a serious invite. But I dont really know.
I thought your post was going to end with the words, "then I came home later that night to find my house ransacked and the Ferrari stolen! Turns out the guy on the phone had nothing to do with the "Who's Who" directory whatsoever."
Me neither. I tend to follow the old groucho marx policy. Any club that would have me as a member, I am not interested in joining! Terry
I don't know it's scam as I never seen the actual book, but they must be making some money since they have been sending invitation in '89. I remember this because I thought it was cool back then, for whatever the reason they would put me into prestige group of USA, but the letter stated that I have to buy the registry. I haven't replied to these for quite while, but back then, they would put you on for free for basic information if you marked that section. I now gets these "listing" service letter almost every months, Yellow Page, Regional Mfr's Registry, Electronics Who's Who, Thomas Register, D&B, S&P, and so on.
I was invited to be in their high school edition. Thought it was a stupid scam. Threw away the letter.
