How a Family Tragedy Landed on a Retailer's Mailing
When Mike Seay arrived home earlier this month and found his wife in the kitchen crying, he braced himself. The couple was still devastated by their daughter's death in a car accident last February, and seeing his wife Shannon distraught, he prepared for the worst.
Mrs. Seay showed him a mailing sent by OfficeMax Inc. Below his name was printed "Daughter Killed In Car Crash."
How does such a horrific detail land on a junk mail envelope? Most likely from a customer-service representative who collects information during a sale for the store's use, according to an executive who knows the data-collection industry. Details are electronically passed from company to company and finally to a printer.
Such incidents are inevitable—part of the cost of doing business in collecting and collating information on millions of individuals, said Steven Sheck, owner of customer-data provider MailingLists.com. On rare occasions he has seen obscenities find their way into mailing addresses, likely entered by angry customer-service representatives during a contentious telephone call.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303743604579351050709924372?KEYWORDS=officemax
