One of my class members called today to say she had received a post card with a return address to a PO Box in Virginia asking her to call an 800 # to confirm her contact and biographical information.

I had seen an article a few months back in the home town paper that either the school or the school district had signed a contract with a company to research and publish a directory of alumni.

I posted on my website that we did NOT provide any contact information for this project and were not associated with it.

Does anyone have any information on the third party company doing this? I'm awaiting the actual card from this member.

Several years back a company called Harris Publishing did this for Fairborn (all classes). One of our committee purchased the book and we did use it to update our files at the time. It was useful.

I think you are very right in posting that none of this contact came from you though. You don't want anyone thinking that. They get the info from the school or other mailing houses. It's scary how much info is out there. BUT you did not give it out! Classmates need to be aware of that!

Denise

Harris Publishing is one of the companies that does print Alumni Directories. I signed up for mine, I think around 2005, and it was very helpful in finding classmates when I first set up CC. They did another mailing this year but I passed on that one.

I think it is most important to tell classmates that Harris has nothing to do with CC and your class web site. If asked an opinion on the directory, I'd say it is very useful if someone wants to also find members of other classes from the same high school. Also, if you reply to Harris, they will include your current information whether you buy the directory or not.

Thanks, Denise...

That's the one. Here's the company's website page focused on the High School market:

http://www.harrisconnect.com/public-high-school-market

I'm not making a judgement call either way; but will be contacting the school district in the next few days to learn more from their perspective.

Our alumni association did that with Harris in 2005. the Directory was out of date before it was off the press and was full of inaccuracies. Apparently they used people-finding sites when they couldn't get information out of alumni. The project scared off enough folks that we've had some trouble getting classmates to give us their contact data on the website, even though we state that we do not share or sell their info, ever.

John Chidester wrote:

John,

This is the company that Brad made reference to in his e-mail he sent to me and CC'd you as well, yesterday! The way they go about getting information puts them in the same category as Most SLEAZYIST Company. The latter being the Worst of the WORST. Classmates isn't too far behind them at this point.

Add me to the unimpressed side of the ledger.

We bought a 2005 CD (about $70) last year containing our high school alum, but found little benefit for something that old and that pricey!

You'd think if data was on a computer data base, they'd try and keep it up to date, but most of it was well over five years old and inaccurate.

In addition, the sorting was limited to alphabetized lists thus rather labor intensive to sift through for a particular year of grads.

Finally, the data management app that came with it only worked on a PC, thus absolutely useless to anyone in the Mac community.

Bob

John Chidester wrote:

I posted a similar statement on our site.
Our School Board does not release any unauthorized personal information, period.
I maintain the same strict privacy policy for our site.

I talked to our school district today; they've been getting many calls from alumni. They clearly stated they have no relationship with Harris Publishing -- nor does the High School. They recommend people NOT participate.

I've edited my post to our class members with a sample of the card. You can view that here.

Edit to fit your situation and feel free to use it -- but please do NOT use the image of the card.