Jun 2, 2011
I started receiving these the day after filling out an online customer survey for Cici's Pizza at http://corpri.com/cicis which does not have a privacy policy mentioning their mystery shopping company (corpri.com or Corporate Research International, of Findlay, Ohio also mysteryshops.com) will call or sell the number.
They called Tuesday and Wednesday after I filled out the Cici's survey on Monday (and got a whopping free softdrink for that).
I do have a business relationship with Cici's (only as a dining patron) but not with Corporate Research International. I have been on the federal do-not-call list with this number since the day the list accepted registration.
It does not take five days to remove a number from a robo-dialed list, but that's what their robo dialer said it would take. I requested an operator by pressing 0, *, #, and asking for one vocally (which some systems understand) and each time the computer just hung up.
I looked all over copri.com for a phone number, but they really want their correspondence to come via their online form. So I looked them up via other means and left a voice mail about this series of events for the Chief Operations Officer, Renny Arredondo. That phone number is 419-422-3196 and the list of corporate management staff is at http://www.mysteryshops.com/about.asp?t=Executive_Team up to and including the CEO.
These people count as customers (besides Cici's Pizza) Lowe's, KMart, Hibbett Sports, Gander Mountain, Meijer, Barnes and Noble, Sears, Blockbuster, ExxonMobil, Valero, and many other regional, national, and international names (if the claims on the website can be believed).
It seems there could be some coincidence here, but that is highly unlikely. I figure either their hands are all over this or their web site is insecure and this information is being stolen from it.
The automated system I get when I call the 217-801-9152 number back want me to answer a "three minute" survery to get a $50 Walmart gift card. IT wants me to pay shipping and handling (probably with a credit card number of course) up front for the card. It would cost about $0.19 to mail in bulk presort but they claim it's worth $50 and they need me to cover shipping. I'd rather have two twenty-dollar gift cards shipped without giving a machine my CC number in some scam, thanks. Of course I didn't do their survey or give them any financial information.