Wednesday, February 19, 2014

The Perils of Renting Mailing Lists: Bank Mailer Sent to “Slut”

renting mailing lists

Imagine renting a mailing list for marketing purposes, and finding your company publicly embarrassed on Twitter over it. That’s exactly what one bank faced recently.


A San Francisco freelance writer got a credit card offer in the mail from Bank of America, addressed to “Lisa Is A Slut McIntire.”


Actually, McIntire’s mother got the mailer on her behalf. After informing her daughter that she had received this offer in the mail, the self-described feminist writer set out to discover how she got her new middle name. According to a Chicago Tribune report and tweets that McIntire sent to her followers, fault is being pinned on an honors society she joined in college:


Hi @BofA_Help. I just received a credit card offer from you that addressed me as “Lisa Is A Slut McIntire.” pic.twitter.com/7OeNZSlNhX


— Lisa McIntire (@LisaMcIntire) February 6, 2014



The Golden Key International Honour Society partnered with Bank of America to jointly market a card to its members. A letter inside the addressed envelope even has the same unfortunate name tagged in paragraphs to make it sound more personal, like: “Lisa Is A Slut McIntire, you have earned this special ….”


After her tweets went viral, it prompted some quick apologetic responses from the honor society and Bank of America. The honor society has accepted blame for the mix-up.


To its credit, Bank of America tweeted an apology to McIntire and contacted her directly by phone, too. Golden Key says that McIntire’s middle name was changed in the records sometime between 2004 and 2008. The bank says its mailing system is on the lookout for profanity. Apparently, not the word “slut,” though.


Luckily for both Bank of America and the Golden Key Honour Society, McIntire has taken the whole incident rather lightly:


OK, I kinda lied before. My mom doesn’t care about Gawker, but she is impressed that I made @MailOnline. http://t.co/xjWYuy3zO8


— Lisa McIntire (@LisaMcIntire) February 7, 2014



For businesses, the incident is a reminder of the perils of renting mailing lists for direct marketing. Obviously the honor society and the bank were both embarrassed.


But beyond that, consider that the information used to send McIntire her credit card solicitation hadn’t been scrubbed in up to 10 years old. How useful could that information be?


Oops Photo via Shutterstock


The post The Perils of Renting Mailing Lists: Bank Mailer Sent to “Slut” appeared first on Small Business Trends.




Source: Small Business Trends



The Perils of Renting Mailing Lists: Bank Mailer Sent to “Slut”

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