Beware of “Bizar” List Offers

Lately, I've received an unusual amount of emails from companies peddling b-to-b and b-to-c lists. Buyer beware…

By Kelsey Voss
10/12/2009 -09:58 AM

Lately, I've received an unusual amount of emails from companies peddling b-to-b and b-to-c lists. Buyer beware…

These lists may not be from reputable companies and the data they provide may be of low quality. A few of these companies are: “PDB Samples," “List Management Company” and “Info-Bazar Marketing." My favorite peddler so far is Six Channels. Here is an excerpt from the original email I received from them (yes, the whole email was underlined):

I got your contact through your website. We can assist your company with marketing and lead generation initiatives for the year 2009. We keep all opt-in emails of your target market. We do consultative selling; we focus on your ROI. We have 60Million+ B2B list with emails. This is the best time to target your clients to expand your market reach. These contacts come with 80% replacement guaranty.

Thank you and let me know your thoughts.
Shelly Brown Senior Marketing Manager
S C Online Consulting Group Only Online marketing Solutions!

I responded to Shelly and asked several questions: Where do they get the lists? Do they use a list broker? Do they have the data cards? Do they have a Web site we can visit? Here’s the response:

Hope all is well! As Shelly brown is out of office your email below to her was forwarded to my attention, following the answer to your questions.

SixChannels own and maintain 180+ million global data base in-house and we are not a list broker but list brokers work with us to sell our data base.

We also work with client like your on custom list as well, where client can slice and dice our master data base we various demography like, Industry, titles, SIC code, NAICS code, employee size, revenue size, geography, application etc

Your can visit our website at http://www.sixchannels.com Please suggest me a better time for a quick call to discuss in detail. Await your response…..
Regards,
Jack Williams| Manager-Business Development
Six Channels - http://www.SixChannels.com

Circulators and marketers should be wary of these lists. Here are some clues that may tell you the offer’s no good:

1. The offer comes from a company that does not have Web site. Most of the suspicious companies are impossible to find online, which is a clear indication to me that they are either fake companies or really bad at marketing and doing business.

2. Take my example from above: “Shelly” was from “S C Online Consulting Group," but her email domain was “pr-movers.” “Jack” responded from a company called “SixChannels." The mix and match of company names is not a good sign. Which company will respond when you have a problem with the list you purchased? Which company is taking your money?

3. You receive an email that’s an English major’s nightmare. The underlining, the many typos, the horrendous grammar...would you trust the data from a company that can’t even compose a decent email?

4. They have a bad reputation. Do your homework. I looked around online and found others had ordered lists from Six Channels and were, to put it mildly, not happy, according to RipoffReport.com. Click here and here to view complaints posted with the site.

5. It’s too good to be true. If they’re offering you millions of leads at cheap rate, it’s probably names from the phone book.

I would love to hear from others who’ve had similar offers from companies like these. What were some of the oddities you noticed in the pitch? Did you actually purchase lists from these companies and how did that work out? Were you scammed outright?

And by the way, the last time I tried going to the Six Channels Web site, it wasn’t there.

Kelsey Voss is Senior Director, Audience Marketing at Ziff Davis Enterprise.