Be Careful About Your Information

Each One Adds Up

I had advised that small business owners should write to each of the publications to which they subscribe advising that your name, address and other contact information should not be shared with third parties. The idea is to reduce the amount of time that telemarketers can waste. This will improve your productivity in normal business operations. It will also help you to focus on critical communications in the event you are disrupted by a disaster. Spam, telemarketing and unwanted solicitations become more than a nuisance when you are operating from a remote location and trying to deal with a serious disruption to your business. I recently had the experience of receiving persistent calls from a telemarketer who played coy in response to my question as to how he obtained my personal information.

Business that seek contracts with the U.S. federal government are required to register with Dun & Bradstreet, which I did for my own small business when I was responding to a Request for Proposals of the U.S. Agency for International Development. As my registration was a matter of some urgency in order to ensure that I would meet USAID’s deadline, I gave my cell phone number to Dun & Bradstreet solely for the purpose of processing  my registration.  Unbeknownst to me, Dun & Bradstreet re-sold this information to third parties. I began to receive telephone calls on my cell phone from Fortune 500 companies seeking to sell products and services that are totally inappropriate for my small business. Ordinarily I would switch off my cell phone in business meetings out of courtesy to the others present. But as I would explain to other participants at the beginning of each meeting, my circumstances were not ordinary. As my mother was recovering from a traumatic brain injury, I needed to ensure that I could be reached at all times. Since that was the only use of my cell phone, you can imagine how my heart would race and my palms would sweat whenever that phone would ring. And you can further imagine my fury that the calls were unwanted solicitations. When I traced the source of the calls, I notified Dun & Bradstreet in writing that my information is not to be sold to third parties and I wish to be placed on their internal “Do Not Call” list. You should do the same. I think it is an appalling practice that D & B would re-sell this information without the consent of the small business owner, facilitating the abuse and waste of our time. It is particularly offensive to me because we are a captive audience, required to register with D&B if we want to bid on government contracts. Stop the abuse; notify them to keep your information private.