With the advent of "Do Not Call" lists direct marketing companies have had to come up with inventive ways to contact potential customers (or shall we say victims). The other day I recieved a plain white postcard from ARC, Inc, 5175 Perfomance Dr., Cumming, GA 30040-9656 mailed presorted first-class from Fort Meyers, FL. The front of the card has a couple of "peanut people" drawn on it with a slogan that reads "We're going nuts trying to reach you!!" Yeah, right.
I immediately suspected this as being some sort of scam. Anyone that would legitimately need to contact me would:
- Contact me by phone (as they are permitted).
- Would most likely been successful at option 1
- Or, if option 1 failed, contact me by form letter, not a stupid post card.
I googled arc inc cumming ga to see if there was any info on this company. The results were a little disappointing, but not useless. I found Wisely Said's archive of weblog entries devoted to the topic which in turn links to a post at Mark's Realm that includes some research on the subject.
They do this to get around the Do Not Call restrictions. If you contact them you are initiating a business relationship (whether you buy anything or not) and as a result give them permission to add you to their call list and start bugging you. Great.
