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Misadventures in Marketing

Posted March 1, 2002 By Pattie Gillett

Ever try to convince someone that you’re not trying to cheat them? It’s not easy. A lot of times, you do it too well and only end up convincing them that you’re too much of a “smooth talker” to be trusted anyway. How’s that for a Catch-22? It’s a position I find myself in quite a bit. You see, I work in marketing. (Stop laughing.) Just last week I spent almost an hour on the phone with a customer at my credit union trying to convince him that our current auto loan rates weren’t (in his words) “some kind of bait-and-switch thing.” After forty-five minutes of reading and re-reading the terms and conditions to him, he finally believed me. However, he was quick to add, “I still don’t trust you people” before he hung up. (FYI, he really didn’t want the loan either, he just wanted someone to explain it to him, I expect to hear from him again when we run our home equity loan special next month.) I really don’t blame people one bit for not trusting marketers. They really shouldn’t, at least not when we’re trying to sell them something.

Allow me to explain. Contrary to popular belief, all marketers aren’t heartless, soulless individuals who take extreme pleasure from the suffering of others. (If you’ve read my previous piece on telephone and Internet scams, you might think I’m switching gears on you, bear with me.) Most people who work in marketing aren’t rich, present company certainly included. For the most part, we’re just trying to make enough to pay the bills and save a little – just like everyone else. Unfortunately, thanks to the way most marketing salaries are structured, how well we eat is directly linked to how well we can convince people to like us, trust us, and of course, buy what we’re selling.

Now the law of averages says that we can’t all be lucky enough to sell great products. There just aren’t enough great products in the world. Besides, why would you pay someone to sell something that sells itself? (Think about it, when was the last time that someone had to actually talk you into a box of Girl Scouts Thin Mints?) So, much like that old lawyer joke – when the facts are on your side, argue the facts; when the law is on your side, argue the law; when you have neither, bang your fist on the table really loudly – marketers need to make up for the weaknesses in their products somehow. So what do we do? Just about anything. For those of us that can’t afford to pay Britney Spears to dress up in tight retro clothing and lip sync, this means downplaying the weaknesses any way we can, overemphasizing the strengths any way we can, and getting you to like us, any way we can (within legal limits, of course). The reason for that last one is simple: the more you like us, the less you’ll think about calling that other marketer out there who’s selling something better than ours.

Here’s where the trust comes in (or flies out the window, depending on your view): getting a customer to like you can have little or nothing to do with telling them the whole truth. I’ve been told that I’m a lousy marketer because I’m too “blatantly honest ” (Thanks, boss. Coming from you, that’s a real compliment.) My attitude is that the truth catches up with you eventually so it doesn’t make any sense to lie to or even mislead a customer. Not all marketers think that. In fact, most of the people who are far better at selling than I am will tell you that detaching yourself from this job is the key. If you empathize too much with your customer, you may end up believing that they don’t need your product, and what kind of marketer would you be then?

By now you’re probably thinking that I must have been recently fired from my marketing job or have just bought a lemon from a fast-talking used car salesman to disparage my profession like this. Neither is true. My impetus for writing this piece is this: lately there have been far too many examples of people putting their trust into products, people, and companies that have done very little to earn that trust. Moreover, when given that trust, these people and companies act in their own best interests anyway.

Now I’m not just talking about Enron here, although what happened there had as much to do with slick person-to-person marketing as it did with misinformation. (How many Enron employees testified that they didn’t ask many questions about the stock or the retirement plan because their trusted the executives?) How about your doctor? How much do you trust the advice he or she gives you? According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, pharmaceutical companies spent $16 billion in 2000 trying showering doctors’ offices with free meals, tickets, and promotional items. So when your doctor prescribes a brand name drug over a generic (a move that will cost you more in the long run), is he or she doing it because the brand name is genuinely better, or because he has a closet full of promotional items emblazoned with that drug’s name? You won’t know unless you ask. So many of the decisions that you theoretically have some say in end up being made by someone else who isn’t going by what you need, but what someone like me has told them, or, given them. Again, you don’t know until you start asking questions.

And asking is the key – it’s the most important thing to do when you’re face to face with people like me. We’ll be content to play the “trust me and be my friend” game all day if you let us. Instead, let us work for your trust. Ask every question you want to, even if it starts to annoy us. Really, we just want the sale and we aren’t going anywhere even if you are annoying. What do you care, anyway, you can find friends on your own, you certainly don’t need some schlub in an uncomfortable suit and a pasted-on grin to say that he or she is your friend.

Let’s face it, this is a consumer-driven culture. In recent months, we’ve been asked to prove our faith in the “American way” not by being more active citizens, but by being more active consumers (and don’t think we at TINN are not a little irked at that bit of irony). But there’s a big difference between faith and blind faith. My advice (and take it for what you think it’s worth because I do sell financial services for a living, after all): take advantage of the freedom you have to be as darn suspicious as you want to be.

Filed in Special Order Speeches

Defensible Discrimination?

Posted January 1, 2002 By Pattie Gillett

My father, like me, has spent his life on the “color line” — appearing to be black, Hispanic, white or some undecipherable combination of the three. Also, like me, he never knows what race or ethnicity people will perceive him to be. He has long since ceased to care. These days, he drives a white SUV — not a flashy one but not an inexpensive one either. Recently, he and his SUV became the “darlings” of the local police in his Queens, NY neighborhood. In the course of a single week, he was pulled over four times by police. In one instance, he had not even had time to put his registration away before he heard the sirens wailing behind him again. In none of these instances did he receive a ticket or even a warning from the police. They simply asked to see his license and registration, inspected the vehicle, and sent him on his way.

Finally, one officer, as an afterthought when he handed my father back his license, mentioned that drug dealers favored SUVs. Now my dad is a very laid back kind of guy (he could not have stay married to my mother for over thirty years if he wasn’t) and when he relayed this strange tale to me several months ago, he seemed almost disinterested. Then I asked him if he thought it was some kind of racial profiling. He gave me a knowing look, shrugged, and replied, “It was some kind of profiling.” Did I mention my dad is himself a former cop? Read the remainder of this entry »

Filed in Public Policy

Questions to Expect When You’re Expecting

Posted December 1, 2001 By Pattie Gillett

As most of our regular Not News readers know, Dave and I are expecting our first child in April of 2002 (or whenever he or she feels like arriving, but that’s the ballpark). Since this is our first pregnancy, there’s been a great deal for us to learn and get used to in a relatively short amount of time. (Think the “We mustn’t panic, we mustn’t panic” scene from Chicken Run.) One thing that takes a bit of patience is getting used to all the questions we (well, mostly I) get asked. All kinds of questions. I’m patient, because, frankly, I know I’ve interrogated my share of expectant mothers so it’s only fair that I take a little. Also, I know people are just plain curious. They see a belly. They know how it got there but they still want to know more.

Bottom line, I have to be patient because if I can’t have patience with this, why the heck am I having a kid? Here’s a list of my favorites:

How are you feeling? I’ve come to the conclusion that many people have a morbid fascination with morning sickness and other pregnancy-related ailments. Oh, I know most people ask this question out of genuine concern. But deep down I have to wonder that they aren’t waiting for me to wow them with tales of uncontrolled nausea at the sight of green M&M’s or swollen feet the size of Lake Michigan. There’s a great deal of pressure to impress here. I hate to disappoint them but most of the time I just feel tired. No throwing up, just sleepy . . . hey where are you going?

What are your cravings? Expect this question and the previous one to come as a set. There is still the tremendous pressure to impress, or in this case, gross someone out so much that they throw up. If you are like me, and unlucky enough to not have had any cravings, invest some time thinking some up or stealing other pregnant women’s cravings. Why get that bored look when you have to tell someone “Oh, none, really” or “Just milk, actually” (Lord, I am dull!) when you can wow them with “sauerkraut on graham crackers” or “Oreos with bean dip?” C’mon, your pride is at stake here.

How far along are you? This is a dangerous question for two reasons. One, doctors measure pregnancy in weeks, the general public does so in months – the figures never match. I’ve been pregnant about 384 weeks now — or just over five months. To amuse yourself, you can give the person who’s asking one figure and ask them to compute the other. Hours of fun, I tell you.

Secondly, if you’re being asked by a someone who has already had a baby, there will be the inevitable comparison between your size and how “big” she was at this stage. There’s no way to avoid this. If you’re carrying larger, you may get some hearty encouragement about having a “strong one” or a “bruiser.” If you’re carrying smaller, expect follow-up questions about exactly how much weight you’ve gained, what you eat, etc. How much weight you gain during pregnancy is a very political issue. If you gain less than 25 pounds, lie as much as possible. Pad that number, double it, triple it if you have to. You’ll thank me later.

Do you know if it’s a boy or girl? I know this question is inevitable but sometimes I wonder if everyone is keeping a global tally and needs my baby’s gender to meet some sort of headcount deadline. This isn’t quite so bad now that we know. I’m quite happy to share the news. Besides, it’s not like I can keep it a secret forever. Though to be honest, I got this question so early on in my pregnancy (as early as 2 weeks, can you imagine?) – I worry that there’s some “way” to know that I just missed. Was I absent the day in Sex Ed that they gave out the “Morning After Gender Decoder Rings”?

Do you have any names picked out? I cannot imagine how some parents-to-be manage to get to the end of the pregnancy without having this issue settled. You get asked this question every eight seconds or so. Good luck to you folks who’d like to keep both this and the baby’s gender a surprise because curious mobs have been known to beat at least one out of you. Yes, it’s a complicated issue — should we name the baby after someone, who should that person be? What will the family think? However, the two most important things to keep in mind when picking a name: a) how does it sound screamed across a crowded grocery store (because that’s what you’ll be doing with it most often) and b) is it “trendy” (that is, will all the kids in the store come running when you scream it)?

That, in a nutshell, has been my pregnancy thus far. I am sure that, in some strange way, dealing with these questions has helped prepare me for motherhood. I would advise most mothers-to-be to also pick up a copy of Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care and What to Expect When You’re Expecting. These books give you clear, understandable answers to many of your own pregnancy questions. It will give you peace of mind until you get to your doctor’s office and learn that it was all wrong anyway. Good Luck.

Filed in Life in Practice

Who Benefits?

Posted October 1, 2001 By Pattie Gillett

Anyone who paid any attention to the rise and fall of the stock market over the last ten years knows that the “new economy” in and of itself, is not reason enough to do anything – lest you end up a major shareholder in Pets.com. However the competitive environment that came out of that period did lead to some important changes in the way many of us work.

A tight market coupled with a relative abundance of capital made it much easier for workers to demand more from their employers – without fear of losing their jobs. Certain perks like onsite massages and weekly beer and pizza parties (a Silicon Valley software company, of course), are easy to write off as frivolous. However, employees might be less willing to give up perks like tele-commuting, tuition reimbursement, and, a phenomenon that gained tremendous momentum in the nineties – domestic partner benefits.

Recent surveys estimate that the number of U.S. employers extending health and other benefits to unmarried domestic partners (both heterosexual and homosexual) at between 18 and 22%, or roughly 2500 colleges, governments and private corporations. Nearly 90% of those that offer these benefits began doing so in the last five years. As a spokesperson for a Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.- based advocacy group for gays in the workplace, said in early 2000, “Domestic partner benefits are increasingly becoming a standard business practices in corporate America. Employers have discovered that these benefits help attract and keep the best workers, a critical consideration in the current tight job market.”

Offering a competitive benefits package to attract the best workers may have been priority number one in the late nineties but in late 2001, it is almost certainly not. In a time where economic and other factors led to 199,000 job cuts in September alone, many are wondering if the other merits of domestic partner benefits are enough to sustain them.

What Are Domestic Partner Benefits?

Before we can discuss their merits, perhaps it’s best to describe domestic partner benefits according to the definition found in most employer policies. Domestic partner benefits can include medical and dental insurance, disability and life insurance, pension benefits, family and bereavement leave, education and tuition assistance, credit union membership, relocation and travel expenses, and anything else that spouses and other family members may be entitled to under a company’s benefits policy. While definitions of “domestic partners” can differ from company to company, the basic definition, which is intended to approximate a legal marriage, is as follows:

  • there must be an ongoing and committed spouse-like relationship intended to exist indefinitely, which has existed for at least six months;
  • the partners are not related by blood to a degree of closeness that would prohibit legal marriage in the state in which they reside;
  • neither of the partners can be the legal spouse or domestic partner of any other person;
  • both have shared the same residence for at least six months, are responsible to each other for the direction and financial management of their household, and are jointly responsible for each other’s financial obligations.

Some companies require that the employee and their partner sign an affidavit or other official document attesting to the above or be registered with a local domestic partner registry (if one exists in the area; there is a list available). Some companies also limit DP benefits to homosexual partners using the argument that the law does not prevent heterosexual partners from marrying. For the most part, however, most DP policies apply to all domestic partners and their natural or adopted dependents.

In light of the current economic downtown (and the impact on the workforce), advocates of domestic partner benefits argue that while having a benefits package with a competitive edge was the easiest way to “sell” DP benefits to corporate America, it’s far from the only reason:

Reason 1 – Practice What You Preach

One good reason to offer DP benefits is to enforce a company’s own anti-discrimination policy. If a company has already taken its policy further than the federal and most local governments by also prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, it is, some say, a natural extension to offer gay employees the opportunity to take advantage of all the benefits offered to married couples. This is particularly true since most states do not allow same sex marriages. Until the law recognizes these relationships, some companies may choose to do so in the only way they can. One Philadelphia-area company also attempts to extend this policy to companies it does business with by inquiring about the benefits polices of its clients, vendors, partners, etc.

Reason 2 – Equal Pay for Equal Work

As any employer with tell you, an employee’s take home pay is only a portion of his/her overall compensation. If that employee works full time and is entitled to benefits such as health care coverage, dental coverage, pension plans, etc., these can account for up to 40% of that employee’s total cost to the company. Therefore, someone who is in a committed relationship but not married to their partner cannot receive their full compensation without an inclusive DP policy. This is especially true of pension or life and disability plans, which normally pay benefits to a spouse in the event of the employee’s death.

Reason 3 – Reflecting America

Between the 1990 and 2000 Censuses, there was an over 300% increase in the number of same sex unmarried partner households. Conversely, the number of “traditional” households (comprised of heterosexual married couples and their children) has been declining in the past 30 years, from 40% of the total number of American households in 1970 to just under 25% in 2000. With that in mind, a policy that includes domestic partner benefits is an attempt to better meet the needs of a population that, for one reason or another, is relying less and less upon marriage as the basis of a family.

What About the Costs?

In this era of layoffs and corporate belt-tightening, it may seem unlikely that a company would agree to policy changes that would significantly increase its employee compensation spending. But, as studies among the companies already offering DP benefits, extending existing polices to include domestic partners doesn’t hurt the bottom line and the return on the investment is significant.

Separate studies conducted in from 1996 through 1998 by the International Society of Certified Employee Benefits Specialists and management consulting firms Towers Perrin and Hewitt Associates all show a “minimal” increase in medical claims. Moreover, the costs of covering a domestic partner were no higher than covering a spouse or other dependent. This last point in particular is important because one argument against DP policies has been the fear that costs from covering AIDS and HIV-related illnesses would lead to an increase in the company’s medical premiums. This has not proven to be the case. One reason, says one insurer that also offers DP benefits to its own employees, is that the costs of covering AIDS-related illnesses are not significantly higher than other illness such as cancer, major heart disease, etc. Moreover, in many cases, medical costs for same sex domestic partners is lower than those of heterosexual couples because there are fewer pre-natal, pregnancy, infant care costs to cover.

The overall costs of implementing a DP benefits program tend to stay low because very few eligible partners actually utilize the cost-bearing parts of the programs. Enrollment rates hover around one or two percent of eligible employees. The major reason for this is that a large percentage of same sex domestic partner relationships are dual-income, meaning that partners generally have access to their own health and dental care plans. This statistic, should not, says the HRC, be taken as evidence that DP benefits are unnecessary. Domestic partners who utilize these plans say that the acknowledgment of their commitment is just as important as any financial benefits. One partner said that the plan was worthwhile just because it allowed her to be acknowledged when her partner became seriously ill and was hospitalized. Hospital regulations usually limit visitors to family. Since she was an acknowledged by the company’s medical plan as a domestic partner, she had a convincing argument for hospital staff who would have otherwise barred her from the partner’s bedside.

Secondly, there have been, contrary to many concerns, virtually no instances of fraud in response to the availability of DP benefits. Some argue that an employee could allow “virtually anyone” to get “free or cheap health care” on the company’s tab. As mentioned above, the companies offering DP benefits require employees to meet specific requirements, including affidavits and other sworn statements before any benefits are paid. (Frankly, this is even stricter than what married couples are asked – when signing my husband up for my company’s medical insurance, the HR department took my word that he was my husband. I did not have to show a copy of our marriage certificate.) American Airlines, which only extends DP benefits to same sex partners, requires that the couple pledge to marry, if and when same sex marriage becomes legal, in order to get the benefits.

The bottom line: the economy may have made many workplace perks passé but, as many companies large and small (including these) have shown, domestic partner benefits do have a place in today’s working environment. Companies that are looking to offering them should prepare themselves for a backlash, but can be assured that there are practical, justifiable reasons to help the American workplace keep pace with America.

Filed in Life in Practice

When We Said Eight, We Meant Twelve

Posted September 1, 2001 By Pattie Gillett

The will of the people rang out loud and clear. Even New Yorkers who had never had a kind word to say about their out-spoken mayor were calling his name out in the streets. “Rudy! Rudy!” His unwavering grace under pressure has transformed Rudy Guiliani from a lame duck subject of tabloid ridicule to one of the most respected men in America and downright adored in his own city.

As a former New Yorker, I have also had my issues with Mayor Guiliani during his terms as mayor. He has at times been too brash, too harsh, and too combative. In the past, when patience and finesse were needed, he showed neither. During that last mayoral election, I applauded my mother’s decision to support his opponent. However, his handling of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center left me no less than stunned at his ability to bring a shattered city together. It took the experience gained over each and every minute of his two terms in office. Only in that time could he have learned enough about New York to know what to do to help guide the city back from hell. So, in the names of all the family and friends I still have in New York City, I am happy to stand corrected about Rudy Guiliani.

I am, however, a bit miffed at the New Yorkers who are now decrying the term limitation that prevents Guiliani from running for a third term. Their arguments: the city needs Guiliani’s guidance to heal, a transition would be too jarring, etc. My personal favorite is from New York Daily News columnist Michael Kramer who wrote “[N]o one is a Republican of Democrat these days. We are all Americans and New Yorkers. The simple way . . . to give content to those expressions is to embrace the idea of expanding our choice for mayor.” Choice? That sounds suspiciously like the word term limit opponents like myself argued that voters give up when they back legislation that limits the terms of elected officials. New Yorkers voted in favor of term limits in 1993 and city council’s attempts to repeal the law failed twice in the last eight years. Now, when faced with the very real consequences of those actions, not everyone is a quite so sure term limits are that great after all. Read the remainder of this entry »

Filed in Public Policy

The Peanut Gallery Strikes Back

Posted June 1, 2001 By Pattie Gillett

In case you haven’t noticed, the “c” word is pretty big around here. No, not “cheesesteak,” though that may run a close second. I’m talking about “community.” In fact, in some from or another, we at TINN are always talking about community. It’s why we’re here; it’s why this site exists. There are literally thousands of small online communities in existence consisting of groups of people bound together by commonalties others would find strange. In studying even one of these groups, you might be surprised to find how they define “community.” I was the first time I entered a fan fiction community.

To use the widely accepted definition, fan fiction is the reworking of the original text of a motion picture, television program, novel, or series of novels to better serve the needs or interests of a smaller community. That definition is not mine; it comes from researcher Henry Jenkins who literally tagged along with Star Trek fans for years analyzing their interactions at conventions, meetings, etc. Jenkins also came up with some general fan fiction categories, which do a great job of furthering explain what fic writers do with their source material. Here, briefly are the basics: Read the remainder of this entry »

Filed in Culture and Media

You Are Not Helping, Boss

Posted June 1, 2001 By Pattie Gillett

Even those of us with less than 10 years working experience can recognize bad management skills when they see them. Between my jobs in college, my semester internships and my post-college employment roller coaster rides, I could probably pick poor management skills out of a line-up at three in the morning. So in honor of the first month in my MBA program and just because I feel like it, I’m writing an open letter to my bosses letting them know that the dumb things they did have not gone unnoticed. My collection of past and present supervisors will be consolidated under one false name for space and privacy purposes. (Not that I really need to worry that any of them are wasting time reading this. Most of them have a very busy puppy-kicking schedule to keep.)

TO: Maurice Ron
FROM: Me
RE: The Sense God Gave You, Lack Thereof

Good advice is something one seldom asks for but always needs. Please take my advice for what it is worth and remember that constructive criticism builds a better you.

  • The management course you took that advised keeping ill-informed, angry, inept workers on your front lines (e.g. in customer service, on your sales force) was not seeing the whole picture. I would seriously consider rethinking this tactic.
  • Do not implement an expensive and complicated software system before at least two people in your company understand it. Also, for the love of all that is good and decent, don’t take the older system off-line before you have a plan in place to fix the new one when (and I do mean when) it breaks.
  • Please do not change the security code on the restrooms without telling anyone. It’s really not funny after the first two times.
  • Proving Darwin’s survival theory with free pizza is not everyone’s idea of a good team building strategy. We truly do not like having to outwit, outsmart, or outplay our colleagues for food. In short, when ordering lunch for the office, do be sure to order enough for everyone.
  • Do not refer to female employees over the age of 18 as “your girls” no matter how much you may think you look like Cary Grant.
  • If you monitor your employees’ Internet use, do so wisely. The occasional Steven Wright-isms email is not cause for a memo. On the other hand, a 75% increase in traffic to Monster.com may be worth looking into.
  • For the last time, learn the difference between “Reply” and “Reply to All.” It’s much easier than trying to explain how you meant “damn pain in the ass” in a good way. The corollary to this advice is to remember to hang up the phone completely before calling the person you were talking to a bastard.
  • Do not assume that one over-performing department can make up for five under-performing departments. No, not even if they work Saturdays.
  • The karaoke machine you rented for the office Christmas party did not make up for the lack of bonuses that year. It really didn’t.
  • Your “whoever buys my lunch gets to be favorite employee of the day” routine wears thin really fast.
  • Publicly berating people for their work performance does not make them better workers, it just makes them pissed at you and they often quit. You end up with empty positions and unfinished work. So when you think about it, your legendary tirades serve only as complete wastes of time.

Sincerely,

Your employee

Author’s Note: While I have exaggerated a bit for comic effect, most of the situations on which these comments based actually happened. I’ll be more than happy to explain on the boards if you’re really interested. I’d much rather read your additions to this list, though.

Filed in Special Order Speeches

A Healthy Paranoia

Posted April 1, 2001 By Pattie Gillett

Back in my college days (which are now embarrassingly long ago), my knowledge of con artists was limited to the three-card monte dealer a few blocks off campus who for some reason, always seemed to find a few marks among our students. Being a paranoid native New Yorker trained since my toddler days not to make eye contact with anyone, not even my stuffed toys, I never actually saw the guy, I only heard the stories. Despite the university’s warnings and despite the fact that the con itself was older than dirt, a fair number of students blew their beer money in search of the red card. At 19, that kind of loss is a life lesson, a reminder to keep your wits about you at all times. It’s also mockery ammunition for your friends for well into the next decade.

These days, working at a financial institution (and having a slightly unsettling fascination with illegalities), my knowledge of frauds and cons has grown to the point where I’m just one big knot of suspiciousness. I’m going to make myself useful by sharing my paranoia in the form of information about the recent spike in “tech” cons (cons committed using the telephone or Internet). With these types of frauds, there’s much more than beer money at stake. When it becomes common for someone to lose thousands in a phony online auction or their savings in a phony stock scheme, life lessons like these are way overpriced.

Internet and Telephone Frauds (including telemarketing fraud) are unique for a number of reasons. In face to face cons, the con artist typically needs time with the victims to establish rapport and build trust. They’re literally building your confidence in them (which is where the term comes from). For some would-be victims, this is sufficient time for their own intuition or common sense to kick in and tell them to pull out of whatever schemes the fraudster has planned. Of course, not everyone does. Moreover, people who have been conned in person usually have a description, paper trail, or other lead for authorities to handle whereas many “tech” con artists are impossible to trace. Finally, our three-card monte dealer and his accomplice, the $20 Rolex salesman, have nothing on telemarketers and online scammers when it comes to volume. Good telemarketers can make hundreds of calls per day and online scammers are limited only by their own bandwidth and imaginations. Anyone see a problem here?

The National Consumers League, the Consumers Union (the folks who publish Consumer Reports) and the FCC are just a few of the people who see a problem. They’ve started tracking telemarketing and Internet fraud more carefully in recent years. The National Consumers League, a hundred-year-old consumer advocacy group, published a report last year, which placed online fraud losses at well over $3,500,000. (Of course, they didn’t count the NASDAQ because for some reason, getting people to invest in online pet retailing is actually legal). Tops on the list of Internet fraud were online auctions, though work-at-home schemes and multilevel marketing cons have found a home online as well. Even the tried and true Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud is alive and kicking around online. The Internet is still relatively new, and as more people move online, the number and variety of online crimes will surely increase.

Telemarketers, on the other hand, have been at the fraud game for years, honing their skills. Many are nearly impossible to differentiate from legitimate salespeople (not that anyone who calls you during dinner should really be called legitimate). A study by the NCL puts losses to telemarketing fraud in the area of $40 billion per year. The FBI estimates that there are 15,000 illegal telephone sales companies at work in this country. While they may not all operate in boiler rooms, they’re all out to separate consumers from their money selling phony investments, goods, and services.

Here are just a few examples of the telemarketing scams that have worked for many years, courtesy of www.crimes-of-persuasion.com:

You may have already won — Scammers have used “advance fee sweepstakes” for years with tremendous success. They call of thousands upon thousands of winning “entrants” (not that the people called ever remember entering anything) to tell them that they’ve “won” a large sum of money or other “valuable” prize. To collect, all the need to do is send in a check or money order (or give them a credit card number) to cover the taxes, release fees, subscription costs, etc. Companies like these target the elderly; 80% of the scam victims are over the age of 65. In one case, a pair of telemarketers impersonated federal tax officials to bilk elderly victims out of $20,000 or more each.

You may have already been scammed — If you’ve been scammed once, beware of helping hands, at least those not attached to recognized law enforcement agencies. The bottom-dwellers of the telemarketing world are those who prey on the victimized. (They actually buy “sucker lists” with names of previous scam victims). They promise to help you recover your lost money – for a small fee. Many of these scammers operate under official sounding names such as the Fraudulent Action Network and charge anywhere from $200 to $1000 to “help” victims. At best, victims receive a list of organizations to contact about the crime which the victim could have easily gotten for free out of the phone book. At worst, the victim gets a double asterisk next to his or her name on the “sucker list.”

Boiler Room not starring Ben Affleck — Real life “boiler room” (they actually use rented space in reputable looking office buildings) telemarketing operations may have up to 50 reps each making 250 to 300 calls per day selling everything from penny stocks to gemstones to time shares. The best work much like three-card monte dealers, working to gain your trust with multiple phone calls. One ingenious operation called and gave victims stock forecasts until they bit. What the victims didn’t know was that the boiler room made 200 calls, they told one hundred people that the stock would rise, and the other 100 that the stock would fall. After watching what actually happened, they simply called the correct 100 and made another forecast, cutting the groups in half until they had a working pool of victims ready to invest.

Sure, knowing a handful of the methods that scammers use may help, but aren’t con men constantly coming up with new ideas, new methods? How are you supposed to protect yourself? Many consumer advocacy groups have free fraud prevention web sites on the Internet available for consumers who have been scammed or who just want to protect themselves. Many sites are updates regularly with the latest scams and the latest on criminal investigations. Visit the links I’ve included with the article for more information. You can also check with you local news organizations to see which frauds are popular in your area. Many scammers are methodical, especially if they’ve been successful in a given area.

The surest way to avoid being scammed is to not be afraid of paranoia. I’m serious. Ask questions. Press for more information. A legitimate salesperson should be happy to answer them. A scammer doesn’t want to give away too much. Here are some questions that will help you tell the difference:

How did you get my name?

Be very suspicious if they say “the phone book” or some other vague answer.

What is the risk involved?

If they try to convince you that it’s a guaranteed investment, hang up. Investments, particularly securities, always carry risks, by their nature.

Can you send me this information in writing?

If they tell you that you must “act now,” hang up.

Would you mind explaining this information to my lawyer?

Again, if they tell you that they can’t because you have to “act now,” hang up . . . loudly.

Can you give me any references?

This may not always be 100% effective in itself because they could just give you the number of the person sitting next to them in their boiler room, but if they can’t even give you that, it’s a big red flag.

New cons and frauds pop everyday and even with advocacy groups pushing for privacy legislation (itself a controversial subject), we can’t rely on the laws to stay ahead of the criminals. Each person needs to exercise their common sense, ingenuity, and self-restraint when dealing with con artists. They make big promises but in the end, they’re only looking out for themselves. Confidence crimes are aptly named. In the end, it’s your judgment and your trust in other human beings that is stolen. How much money is that worth?

Other Helpful Links:

Internet Fraud Watch
The Cagey Consumer

Filed in Life in Practice

Sim-ply Irresistible

Posted March 1, 2001 By Pattie Gillett

Will Wright could probably teach the big tobacco companies a thing or two about marketing addictive products. In fact, I’m seriously considering reporting him to the ATF or the FCC or whoever the heck is handling that sort of thing these days. Well, as soon as save enough money for Walter to buy a hot tub so he can have a party so he can make some new friends so he can advance in his career.

Hmmm, I should probably explain what I just said. No, there is too much. Let sum up. I put this computer game on my Amazon.com wish list. My sister brought it for me. I played said game and pretty much everything else in my life came to a screeching halt. That’s probably not enough so I’ll give you some more detail. The computer game in question is called The Sims. It was created by an evidently sadistic chap named Will Wright, who had previously contributed to the decline of productivity in this country by creating the hugely popular Sim games.

For those who are not up on the computer gaming world (and I don’t pretend to be either), Sim City is a simulation game that allows you to build and control a major city from the ground up. You build buildings, design neighborhoods, fight crime, control the power supply, etc. While the Sim series has been enjoying tremendous popularity for ten years, The Sims has only been around since March 2000. However, most people who find themselves unable to turn the game off at three or four o’clock in the morning (present company included) don’t seem to mind its relative infancy.

Basically, with The Sims, instead of controlling cities, you control people. That got your attention. The game takes place in a neighborhood, according to the game literature, actually a suburb of Sim City. There are several predefined homes, some with predefined inhabitants. There are also other lots available for the user to add new homes. Your task: create or import new Sims (people) into the neighborhood, find them jobs (or not), acquaint them with their neighbors, and keep them happy.

How do you know if they’re happy? Well, there’s this slick-looking dashboard on the bottom of your screen that keeps you informed of each Sims’ needs: hunger, bladder, (you don’t actually have to watch them go, the bathroom scenes are mostly censored), energy, social, room, hygiene, comfort, and the all-important, fun. Depending on your Sims’ personality traits, these needs can move up or down pretty fast, and it’s up to you to direct your Sims to do what it takes to meet their needs. So, if your Sim is hungry, you can direct them to cook a meal, have a snack, or call for a pizza. But wait, Mr. Wright has thrown in another curve: if you haven’t directed your Sim to bone up on his or her cooking skills, he or she just might burn the kitchen down if they try to cook. Or, if your Sim hasn’t been going to work regularly, he or she might not have the cash to afford the pizza. I made the unfortunate mistake of directing a mechanically inept Sim to change a light bulb; the poor shlub was electrocuted. Oh, I should have mentioned, your Sims can die if their needs get perilously low. You’d think they would have put that in larger print somewhere on the box.

As you’ll quickly discover, playing The Sims becomes a race against time. You need meet all your Sims’ needs while still getting them to put in a good seven-hour workday so they can advance in their careers. Not an easy task, and the Sims’ get very cranky when their needs are not met. Sound familiar? Say you’ve got a Sim on the Pro Athlete career track (one of ten tracks offered in the standard game), unless you keep your athlete in a good mood, he or she will refuse to work out, a necessity in moving ahead or even keeping a job in that field. One of my Sims flat out refused to use the home gym I directed him to buy. Can you believe that guy?

Which brings me to what are probably the most addictive options in the game: Build and Buy modes. If you are so inclined, and your Sim has the requisite cash, you can build the home of your dreams or at least a reasonable electronic facsimile thereof. The standard game comes with dozens of flooring, wallpaper, and landscaping options as well as over 150 items to furnish the home. Believe me, I was knocking down walls and re-tiling patios until all hours of the night just last week. The kicker is, generally the more expensive the item, the better it will meet your Sims’ needs. Sims who sleep in the priciest beds don’t need to sleep as long, which gives you more time to battle their other seven needs.

There is no “end” to this game, no real goal per se, except to keep your little community moving along and keep the interactions between your Sims (they can fight, get married, have kids, etc.) into infinity. And to make matters worse, Maxis, the company behind the game, has started putting out expansion packs with more items to buy, more housing options, and more career tracks. Yes, I have one. The Sims: Livin’ Large Expansion Pack followed me home from the store one day. Freakish thing. Maxis even offers a Sims Exchange portion of the game’s website, where registered users can upload and download Sim families, publish family albums, and chat with other gamers. (Editors’ note: Pattie will be happy to learn that Electronic Arts will soon be releasing another expansion pack, The Sims: House Party along with a game that supposedly mixes Sim City with The Sims, called Simsville.)

From the web site, I’ve learned that The Sims is a game that’s very dependent upon the player’s personality. Having played the game (virtually nonstop) for the past month I’ve developed a key strategy on maintaining happy Sims (one that will probably not surprise anyone who knows me): multitasking. Listing to the stereo will boost a Sims fun level but dancing with a neighbor boosts both social and fun needs. But all this multitasking doesn’t leave a lot of time for decorating so my Sims live in modest-sized homes furnished with the whatever necessary items they can afford at the time. It was not until I downloaded a house created by a fellow gamer that I was apparently not fully appreciating the Build and Buy modes. This Sim home had among other things, forty bedrooms, half a dozen bathrooms, and a casino. I think there’s a reason this is not a multi-player game.

So before I get back to my pal Walter and his woefully inadequate social life, a few final words about this game:

  1. It should come with a warning from the Surgeon General and not one of those wimpy cigarette ones, either, a real one.
  2. I hope the folks at Maxis have had fun laughing at the irony of selling a game that depends upon the characters honing their efficiency skills to consumers who will likely spend hours upon hours at their computer while they should be doing laundry. Real funny. Ha Ha. (I will find out where they live, I swear it.)
  3. If you read too much into the game and extrapolate what it says about our society and our consumerist culture, you will begin bleeding from the ears. Just play.
  4. Simply playing Life when you were a kid will not prepare you for this game, you do need to read the instructions lest your Sims start dropping like flies. It’s quite like the game of Life if you think about it, if the game of Life were designed by mad scientists on steroids.
  5. If you do purchase this game, do yourself a favor and pick up a newspaper or call a friend once a while – just to remind yourself where you are.
Filed in Special Order Speeches

The Adventures of Consultant Woman

Posted February 1, 2001 By Pattie Gillett

A few weeks ago, I was taking the GMAT (the business school entrance exams for those who may not know) and I got to thinking. Actually, It may not have actually been thinking, per se, it may have just been that while I was strip mining my brain in search of 11th grade trigonometry, I ran into some half-formed thoughts, which I am now going to share with you. In any case, I thought to myself, “Well this is it. I just paid $200 to take this big test so I can go back to school and get an MBA. Me, a woman who had once dreamed of being a lawyer so I could protect the innocent, a police officer so I could fight crime, a journalist so I could root out injustice. Today, I’ve decided to get an MBA so I can . . . consult.”

Two, no, three years ago, (oh, God) one of my college professors pulled me a aside to say that he’d be happy to write me a recommendation for grad school when the time came. I nearly laughed in his face. You see, he was my Marketing professor and he was talking about an MBA. At the time, I was in my “business school is for heartless capitalists” mode. I was ferociously liberal (yes, even more so) and my fiancée and I were both planning to get graduate liberal arts degrees. Him, Philosophy, me Communications and/or American Studies. We were going to get our degrees, spend a few years with pickaxes trying to find tenured university positions, and settle down with modest, tweed-focused wardrobes. Yes, I was a very odd 21-year old.

Somewhere along the line, the academic haze lifted (even if it hadn’t, we decided we needed to eat more than we needed tweed). I decided to be all indecisive about my future because there is a definite shortage of twenty-somethings playing that gig. I got a job, then another one, and just for kicks, another one. Then something really annoying happened, I found out I was good at my new job. It was challenging, there was room for advancement, and I was using my talents. I tell you, the day I realized that, I was so pissed. The whole liking what you do throws you for a loop so it took me a while to get my bearings. Luckily, I wasn’t so happy that I didn’t notice at least a few things in my company that could be improved, a few policies that needed tweaking, and a few things that were outright stupid. It’s a little gift I have.

So here I am, with a deskful of business school applications and a few merits to my names. To sum up, I’ve discovered, that I’m good at my job, generally have good ideas, have very good management instincts, above average writing and creative skills and sarcasm to spare. So what the hell, right? What else I’m I going to do with the next three years? Hell with these decision-making abilities, I should be running a Fortune 500 company now. But there’s protocol. Like anything else, an MBA is a credential. It’s a credential that I need to have my ideas taken seriously. Without it, I’m just another know-it-all liberal college grad whose bleeding heart leaves stains in the conference room. With an MBA, hopefully I’m the know-it-all they listen to because it’s cheaper to let me talk while than to keep replacing the upholstery.

Seriously, I can’t wait to start grad school. There’s just so much I want to learn I’m not sure I’ll even have enough time. Employee benefits, organizational management, workplace diversity, all this may sound like one level above toe jam to most people but it’s what I find interesting. Some people like Taxi reruns. I don’t pass judgment on them.

It’s not like I expect having an extra degree to be the answer to everything. When I consider the fact that my undergraduate degree basically gave me the right to fax moderately important documents I’m thinking I’m going to have to start small. I’m shooting for Overnight Fed Ex privileges. Work my way up from there.

So, if in 20 years, I’m a professional consultant, that wouldn’t be so bad. It may not be what a twelve-year old dreams about but it’s definitely honorable. I may not get to wear a badge but I’m kicking around the idea of wearing a t-shirt with big C on it from time to time. You see, it’s not really the job title that’s important, it’s what you do with it that counts. I have a conscience, I have a heart, and pretty soon I’ll be getting the education that I need to make an impact in the kind of job I want. Most importantly, I have the willingness to start a business and call it Here to Fix What You’ve Screwed Up Consulting Inc. Really, once you’ve got that, what else do you need?

Filed in Special Order Speeches
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