One my favorite(?) Cold Call scenarios is the "I enjoyed our conversation with you" at the conference that I did not attend...

🙄

#ColdCalls

Ich hasse es, dass #ColdCalls in Deutschland immer noch erlaubt sind:

0307001668797 ("PflegeHilft") ist jetzt dauerhaft gesperrt.

Likely to be my favorite Cyber MSP Cold Call this week (although the week is young).

This email asking to schedule a call to discuss why they would be the best choice to outsource my Agency's Cyber-monitoring systems to contained 38 attachments, all with the same name, and all with no file extension.

#ColdCalls #Cybersecurity #IneptVendors

Falling into the more annoying category of Cold Call BS today, I had an email from a Cybersecurity Sales "Executive", with the subject line "test", several image links (undownloaded as our Org policy is to block by default) referring back to their sales lead generation tool, and the individual's contact information.

Annoyance multiplied x2 because their focus is Cyber MSP.

It got a reaction of course, just not the one that their org may want...

#Blocked #ColdCalls #Cybersecurity

Cold-called PR pitches are a bad idea that the PR industry can’t seem to let go, but the publicist who called me Tuesday morning managed to transcend the usual problems with that concept–as in, who among us even answers a call from a strange number?–by calling me at the wrong number.

No, not some other person’s digits: the actual cell number I’ve had since 2000, which I do not use that for business because I have a Google Voice number for that purpose (202-683-7948, if anybody reading this needs a reminder) that rings through to all of my devices and lets me preserve a shred of work/life balance.

Then the guy followed up on his voicemail by texting me at my cell number, after which he e-mailed me but had the smarts to send that message to my work address ([email protected], if anybody reading this needs a a reminder). Having recognized his employer as a company I’d covered before, I wrote back with less anger than I’d immediately felt to say that while I appreciated the outreach, I needed him to forget those digits and use my work number henceforth.

He replied apologetically five minutes later, saying his PR agency had passed on my cell number after seeing it in a database they use. I asked if he could identify that database; less than an hour later, he wrote that the agency had relied on a data broker called RocketReach.

I had not heard of that company, but I’ve written enough about data brokers to know that they’re supposed to provide an opt-out. RocketReach, a Brooklyn-based firm, does just that, allowing people in its database to inspect the profile built on them and request its removal by providing an e-mail address included in their profile.

That worked as advertised, revealing a hilariously obsolete data dump that you can see above. It included not only my cell and home numbers but also my old Washington Post phone number–plus five other numbers at the Post’s 202-334 exchange. The profile clearly needed to be put out of its misery, so I helped myself to RocketReach’s remove-profile option.

I’d like to think that’s the last of this, but as I wrote three years ago, the data-broker industry is a self-licking ice cream cone. So these companies will continue to vacuum up my information from wherever, after which well-meaning publicists will think they’ve cracked the code to get my attention by using one of them. Just this morning, I had one e-mail me at my Gmail address–which is an excellent way to have your pitch vanish between all the newsletters, weekly sales and political fund-raising pleas.

The stupid thing here is that I am trying to keep my work e-mail and phone anything but private–they’re on this site and in my LinkedIn profile, so any Google search should reveal the correct details. And yet some people feel compelled to do things the hard way by spending money on a people-finder site, after which they only pollute their pitch by barging into my personal digital space.

If you’re reading this and work in PR, could you please not be one of those people?

https://robpegoraro.com/2024/09/18/when-a-correct-phone-number-for-me-is-still-very-much-the-wrong-number/

#bestNumber #coldCalls #dataBroker #peopleFinderSites

Just been called by someone claiming to be from "Three" (the phone network) - who knew that Three operated from Skegness? -

Them: This is xxxxxx calling from Three
Me: No, you're not!
Them: <Hangs up>

#Spam #ColdCalls #01754811129

Obwohl seit 2009 verboten und unter hohe Strafen gestellt, interessiert das die Telefon-Mafia so gar nicht. Das ist in letzter Zeit so schlimm, dass ich jetzt nach dem obligatorischen Zusatz für den Mailserver auch einen Spamfilter für die Telefonanlage bauen musste 😒🙄

Das da unten ist nur die "Ausbeute" von gestern. Aktuell läuft mal wieder eine Lycamobile-Spamwelle. Schön zu sehen, wie artig nach 5 Sekunden aufgelegt wird - entweder bei der Ansage nach positivem Online-Check bei Tellows oder der Aufforderung, erstmal seinen Namen aufzusprechen. Hauptsache wir haben unsere Ruhe vor solchen Zecken 🤬

#Telefonspam #Coldcalls #Lycamobile #FreePBX #Tellows #Auerswald