PBO subscription form - intrusive?

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Gunfleet

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I've just filled out a subscription form for PBO, or to be precise I've just filled out most of it. Why does a magazine subscription need my date of birth, home telephone number and email address? So they could put them on a list and sell them, perhaps?

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Its a way of working out statistics on the market. I think you might find little tick boxes which form part of the legal requirement of the data protection act which you can tick to stop IPC selling on your details. If you didnt fill in the offending questions I would have thought IPC would still take your dosh.

<hr width=100% size=1>http://www.yachtinguniverse.com
 
Nope. No tick boxes. That's why I posted. I know it's some nerk in IPC and not a jolly nice sailing journalist inventing this form, but nevertheless I think it's a bit off!

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Just fill it in with any old rubbish answers. No analyst can know if its the truth or not. It is obviously written by some jerk in a suit who is getting paid far too much for his level of incompetance. If sent in incorrect replies would eventually th magazine would give up the exercise and gather data ina more scientific way. In the meantime they will still accept your money and sell you magazines.

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Kim has emphasized on many occasions that IPC do not sell lists. I use one particular e-mail for suspect registrations and the only obvious thing I get from here is YWB Compass Marine stuff.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.arweb.co.uk/argallery/forbsie?&page=1>My Project</A>
 
Agree with Forbsie on this , Kim gave me his reassurance that
this does not happen!

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Along the same lines...

I've been trying to buy a new car, and looking around for good deals on pretty swanky top-of-the-range models.

One garage I spoke to by 'phone wanted all sorts of personal details, before even deigning to talk about stock and delivery dates etc. I put the 'phone down on them.

These days I don't stick around at others' whims. There's too much offensively intrusive and familiar behaviour around.

By way of example, have you ever thought how nice you find it to be 'Mr Smith' rather than 'Fred' when some oik is addressing you?


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You could support your local newsagent and get him to deliver it to you. Mind you he probably knows more about you than any bit of "mis information" you put on a form to PBO, especially if you stay in a wee village.

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<<Kim has emphasized on many occasions that IPC do not sell lists.>> Then I accept that that's the case. Mumble mumble but I still wonder why it's on the form.
John

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He knows all about me because he delivers my Daily ToryGraph. Also he's a cheeky b**ger and he's not getting any more of my spondulicks.
Yrs Brigadier JohnM
( Retd.)

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On Saturday I got to pieces of mail, one was the 101 boat tests I ordered from IPC on Friday afternoon, damn efficient service if you ask me. The other was an American discount chandlery catalogue, which amoungst other emotions did amuse me while sailing on Saturday.

The magazine is aimed at power boaters and the tons of gear essential for them to carry in the states. But when doing quick currency conversions it was by no means discount, I did at least expect some things would be much cheaper than the UK.

One thing I have to get though. is 'the sports cam underwater camera system' - a submersable camera and onboard monitor marketed by 'enjoy underwater viewing without ever getting wet', /forums/images/icons/smile.gif throw out your snorkelling gear and buy this. The other thing that made me smile was the pet collar strobe to keep your dog visable at night, waterproof to 300ft - I mean why?

What gripes me, is who
1. Put me on an american chandlery mailing list
2. Put me on a MOBO list.

Do these people not do any research?

<hr width=100% size=1><font color=blue> Julian </font color=blue>

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.topcatsail.co.uk>Homepage</A>
 
Credit card theft

Of course nobody sells on their lists and of course when credit card "pre-approved" application forms fall into the wrong hands it is not the fault of American Express, Barclaycard or Morgan Stanley, to name but three who have denied that application forms sent to my name but at the wrong address in the last three weeks alone are in any way their responsibility.....

Having been the intended victim of fraud on more than one occasion, and remembering that the credit card company can get a judgement against you at the wrong address just by posting their claims and waiting, it seems to me that not giving information has got to be the right way to go.


Who do you want to trust, the marketing department at a major international publishing house, a credit card company, a credit reference agency???

Next you will be trusting that thieving Mr Brown as he steals more of your money.



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Re: Credit card theft

<<Next you will be trusting that thieving Mr Brown as he steals more of your money>>
Don't get me on to him. He has managed to get his wife in the pudding club just in time to get the sympathy vote for his next round of pilferage. If you earn anything above a basic wage and spend any of the money you earn you will be paying 40% plus NI plus VAT - around 60% of your real earnings. People who earn less are even worse off, of course, as they have no choice but to spend their pittance and pay his VAT, which represents more and more of a slice of your income when your disposable tax paid income is low. We have negative interest rates (if you offset inflation against bank rates) and your pension contributions appear to be buying air. But he won't tell you that on budget day.

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I'm not sure in this case but due to the ever more onerous requirements of circulation audit we sometimes need to ask for a qualifying piece of information that provides the auditor with a cross-reference as to your validity (ie in order to assure auditor that we are not making you up). In the past we've asked for shoe size on at least one form I had to deal with. There may be another reason but that's my best guess given that I am outside office and not in a great position to ask right now. Before that info tickles the paranoia buds qualifying info is not automatically cross-referenced to some great database in the sky...it's simply recorded in case the auditor insists on undertaking some cross-checks.

As for contact details on a subscription form, the starting point is we can get hold of you more easily as a customer if anything goes awry. And, if you allow us to by not opting out, we can use your contact details for marketing, either for purely IPC offers (in which case we have to cross-check your details against a whole range of opt-out controls first) or third parties (although it is rarely in our interests, if ever, to sell our lists on). But thanks to Data Protection Act you have full control of that.

You suggest there were no opt out devices on the form on a later thread but please contact with details of what form you were using, as that simply should not be the case.

With regard to the forums here (unrelated to this post but related to the many assurances I have given in the past) we only collect your e-mail address and we offer no opt in/out information so we simply cannot use the admin list for ybw.com forums for any other purpose whatsoever and have no intention of doing so.

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Hi Kim,
Thanks for your reply. I sent it off so I don't have the form but it was one about four inches by 3.5, came in the magazine and offered one year, two year and direct debit quarterly subscriptions. There was definitely no tick box for opting our - I read it quite a few times. If it's just for internal auditing, what the hell, except I may be your first centenarian customer, according to the form ;-)

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Kim,
A follow up. Another v. small form came with YM. If you put it under a magnifier you can see there is a box 'please tick here if you prefer not to receive such offers', so maybe I was wrong abt the PBO one. But the size of the type! Very nearly unreadable.
John

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