I got an interesting letter today. It came in a plain white #10 envelope, and looked like someone had torn a page out of a magazine. There was a post-it not in the corner, with a hand-written blurb: “Steve, Try this. It’s really good! J.”
That’s what caught my attention. The number of people in this universe who would tear out a magazine article, type an address on an envelope, and mail it to me can be counted on one hand. None of them are “J.”
I began to realize that the thing was a scam as they want me to spend $99/year on a subscription to their newsletter. There were several clues. First of all, there’s no web address anywhere. I’m not doing business of any kind with someone who doesn’t even have an email address. Second, as I read through the article, and did a little research of my own, I found that the article that was sent to me keeps quoting the owner of the company that owns the newsletter, Fuel. The thing is, the owner of the newsletter is The Pohly Company, which does the very kind of promotion that the article is trying to tell me about.
To me this is a lot like promoting your glass business by taping your business card to a brick and chucking it through someone’s window.
I feel burned that someone tried to mislead me into thinking that a friend sent me the letter. I feel double extra burned that it’s not even a genuine article, and triple extra burned that really, these folks want me to pay them $99 for the priviledge of collecting me as a sales prospect.
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{ 1 comment }
At least they got your name right, Steve :) This trick has been around for quite a while: I am pretty sure I first saw it no less than five years ago. What puzzles me is why it is always signed “J”. I think I know only one person on the planet who does that and he uses email and also his surname anyway. What if they tried different letters of the alphabet? That “J” is such a giveaway.
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