Last Thursday, 7:30pm. Indulging in what I do best, I sat on the couch in front of something-or-other on the television. Someone knocked at the door. I get two types of visitors -

  1. The landlord wanting to come in and snoop, or;
  2. Door-to-door sales people.

Looking through the peephole, I saw a young kid wearing a dress shirt and tie, jeans, and a backpack. Clearly not the landlord.

After calling me by name, he proceeded to inform me that I was eligible for discounted internet services as a result of the cable package I buy. He read all manner of personal information from a clipboard, which I asked to see it. The list identified everyone in the building that subscribed to Rogers (the local cable television service), the package they use, and various other details. I declined the offer and sent him on his way.

There is precious little that aggravates me more than sales people visiting unannounced. Add to that my hatred of Joe Blow sauntering around with my personal information, and you would rightly predict that I was officially lit up™ about the whole thing.

I immediately called Rogers Support and spoke to a giggly representative for about 30 minutes, at which point it was clear that I’d have to escalate the issue to get a valid resolution. The girl was very apologetic and offered me the email address of some higher-up Marketing/Support person because her email was down (perhaps she should consider switching away from Rogers internet service)?

I sent what I thought was a pointed but perfectly polite email to the unknown Marketing/Support guy, but received no response whatsoever. After such good results from my last smoke ‘em out endeavour, I present to you the email sent to James Rajan of Rogers. Hope you don’t get spammed, James — I keep forgetting how to obfuscate email addresses for the web.

From: Dennis
To: James Rajan ([email protected])
Subject: Rogers Customer Data Handling Concerns
Date: Thursday, November 18, 2004 8:20 PM

James:

Your contact information was provided to me by a customer service representative during a call placed on November 18, 2004. I initiated the call after a wholly unsatisfactory visit by a Rogers ‘representative’ to my home on the same night.

The person was cold-calling in an attempt to upsell Rogers Internet services to me. Aside from all of my personal contact information, they had information regarding my cable billing package — and who knows what else. At the risk of sounding judgemental, it was blatantly obvious that the representative (who appeared to be in his early teens) was not a full-time Rogers employee, nor someone that I would entrust customer data to if I were in your position.

Consider this email a formal request to have my personal information
shielded from any such activity in the future. This includes telemarketing, email campaigns, door-to-door sales, or any other unsolicited marketing endeavors by Rogers Cable, Rogers Telecommunications, Rogers affiliates or partners.

Please reply at your earliest convenience to confirm receipt of this message and to specify the actions that will be undertaken to remedy this situation. For your records, the phone number my account is listed under is nnn-nnn-nnnn.

Thanks in advance.

Dennis