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Thread: Excuse Me, You work for WHAT Agency??

  1. #1
    mixedgas's Avatar
    mixedgas is offline Creaky Old Award Winning Bastard Technologist
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    Default Excuse Me, You work for WHAT Agency??

    Your daily dose of Drama, here it comes:

    .. Wasn't home last week, but was told I got a call from some official sounding Government person asking about my business activities and lasers. A reverse look up showed the number to have had many owners, all shells. The number did not show DC or Maryland or Denver. So much for making assumptions from the number, not enough data. Most 800 numbers get around more then a clubbing swinger.

    ..I was told the caller was hard to understand. When getting a call from Uncle, its not unusual for government workers to speak poor English, so the "its a call center" thing doesn't apply. Uncle likes to hire folks who have migrated here, they work for cheap. Uncle usually does not pay the extra money for a WATTS line, but sometimes he does.

    I shrugged it off.

    ..So anyways the phone rings this morning. I answer. Anyway it is a Indian girl in a call center some place, asking if I'm involved working with lasers, and she's trying to pass her self off as official. Bad move.

    ..After eight years of working at a federally funded, state government ran facility, I "KNOW" official and honey, you were not it. Official usually means IDing your self up front, and talking like a ordinary Joe. It usually starts with a discussion about the weather or the game last night. Something of faked interest to desk jockey types, for burning off clock time. Never is there any hollywood style "Official Arrogance", unless its the US Census, the Poison Control Hotline, or a 911 dispatcher.

    .. The alarm bells went off as she read the company name. That name appears on one(1), government document, at one agency, and its a DBA, ie "Doing Business As" Perfectly legal, its what you do in Ohio if you can't afford to incorporate. After about five sentences of trying to cut through the fake official bull, and she's being evasive, I finally get her break from her script and admit whom she works for, Dunn and Bradstreet.

    Long story short, somebody, official or otherwise, is selling the top few lines of variance data. They probably bought a list of people/corporations who interacted with FDA. For some reason DandB is interested in classing folks who work with lasers, but not smart enough to know laser shows are not medical/industrial lasers.

    I'm not used to the idea of the Federal government selling data. I know state governments make a killing, selling license plate and local tax data, but the FEDS? CRAP!

    Steve
    Qui habet Christos, habet Vitam!
    I should have rented the space under my name for advertising.
    When I still could have...

  2. #2
    soforene's Avatar
    soforene is offline The Troll formerly known as Herbert Von Poople-Futtocks
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    Wink

    Does this mean you'll soon be making Licence plates?

  3. #3
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    buy targeted marketing lists from dunn and bradstreet

    http://smallbusiness.dnb.com/grow/12320701-1.html

  4. #4
    mixedgas's Avatar
    mixedgas is offline Creaky Old Award Winning Bastard Technologist
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    It gets worse, the overseas call center people have no checkbox for "doing business as" on their screen at the call center. They thus feel they need to call 4 times a day with 4 different people until they get the information they want. I keep telling them to Feck OFF, per Father Ted, and its not working. D and B New York may just get a call from me, to complain.

    All this because they have no concept of what "Doing Business as" means.
    &*&$(_ Data Mining, ARGH!!!!!!!!

    Steve
    Last edited by mixedgas; 08-17-2010 at 14:09.
    Qui habet Christos, habet Vitam!
    I should have rented the space under my name for advertising.
    When I still could have...

  5. #5
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    Default

    I would send them an invoice for your time on the phone as a professional consultant.

  6. #6
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    Default

    Our local authorities have been selling lists for years - electoral register anyone?

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