- Jan 21, 2005
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So for the last 8 years I have been receiving "wrong number" calls, which should have been directed to Thrifty Car Rental at Seatac airport. I get several calls per day, due to their incompetent marketing department accidentally placing my phone number all over.
ORIGINAL EMAIL:
To whom it may concern,
Despite several attempts to get in contact with someone at your corporate office, I have still not received any call or email back. This is my final notice to your company regarding this matter.
For the last eight years, I have been receiving phone calls from potential Thrifty Car Rental customers. I have a phone number very similar to the Thrifty phone number used at Seatac airport ? This should not be an issue, however, it appears that your marketing department has made an extremely large mistake, accidently placing my phone number (instead of yours) in all sorts of places.
On average, I receive anywhere between 4-8 calls per day, which should have been destined for Thrifty. Upon asking these patrons where they received my phone number, I have received the following input:
Keychains; Flyers; 411 Directory Service; GOOG-411; 0-Operator; Google.com; Yahoo.com; many different websites, etc?
I have put up with this for nearly a decade now. If you ever get a chance to speak with any of these people who have been misdirected, they will all tell you that I _always_ inform them of the mistake that has been made, and promptly direct them to the correct phone number for Thrifty Parking. They are usually extremely courteous regarding the matter, and quite understanding. I have decided that I am done doing this.
I don?t know how much revenue the average customer generates, however, I do know that the average customer wants to park their car anywhere from 3 to 5 days. In an average week, I will get at least 20 phone calls for Thrifty (mind you, I have undeniable records to prove this); assuming that the average patron will be spending $75, that equates to $1500 PER WEEK.
Starting today, I will be redirecting ALL calls to your competitor, Dollar Rent-a-car ((206) 433-6776).
Please email me back or give me a call if you would like to discuss this further.
Have a nice day,
UPDATE1 (03-14-08):
I have now gotten two phone calls from the Thrifty corporate offices. I'm under the impression that the "call-diversion" threat has had a large impact.
Both calls were women who were apologizing profusely, following up with a bunch of questions. They will be getting back to me.
UPDATE2 (03-27-08):
I sent another email to them after not hearing back for 2 weeks. Thoughts?
To whom it may concern,
After sending my previous email, I was immediately impressed when I received two phone calls from your corporate office in an attempt to fix this issue. My impression of your service has once again turned from praise to disgust, as I have not received any further correspondence.
Both corporate employees I spoke with (Rhonda, and one other) were quite sure that the issue I am encountering is due to a reminiscing mistake, made by the marketing department, several years ago. They were also quite sure that the ?typo? could only be found online, and would be ?quite easy to fix?. I have no doubt that because of this, they decided that this was not a large enough issue to ?put time into?.
I am proud to announce that since speaking with Rhonda I have been keeping track of how my phone number was mistakenly found, and many referrals are still coming from physical misprints. To give another idea of the extreme nature of this issue: In the past 13 days, I have thus far received 22 phone calls which were intended for Thrifty. I also happily report that I have referred all 22 of these callers to Dollar rent-a-car (a phone number I have since memorized), after kindly explaining how terrible Thrifty has handled this situation. Every single one of these people thanked me gratuitously for saving them any time and effort that they would have potentially wasted.
I am not an accountant, and I do not know how much money the average customer generates. I do, however, know that the 22 calls I diverted probably would have generated a fair amount of money.
If you would like to further discuss this, feel free to give me a call.
Have a nice day,
UPDATE3 (03-27-08):
I got another call from one of the same women at Thrifty. She recommended that I call DEX and fix the issue myself. After doing some research and getting help from forum members, I have decided to email their CEO, along with the VP of sales, and one other guy. Is the following email too harsh? Does it get my point across? Will it benefit me? Any advice would be great.
Hello,
Firstly, I would like to summarize the events which I have been dealing with:
For the past eight years, I have been receiving ?wrong number? calls on my mobile phone, which were intended for Thrifty Car Rental (Thrifty Parking at Seatac, to be exact). When this first began, I attributed the events to user error, and assumed that I had a similar phone number to that of Thrifty. I soon discovered that Thrifty?s marketing department had put the wrong phone number in many different places on several mediums. To date, these misprints have been found in/on: Keychains, Flyers, 411 Directory Service, GOOG-411, 0-Operator, Google.com, Yahoo.com, and many (yes many) more.
This is something which began slowly, but quickly ramped up into a daily event, which I would usually deal with several times per day. In the vast majority of cases I would kindly inform the caller of their error, inform them of my situation, and kindly give them the correct phone number. Although I doubt any Thrifty employee ever looked into this, I would estimate that hundreds, if not thousands, of Thrifty customers were referred directly from me; most of the time in a better mood than when they originally called (I usually chat with them for a minute). Now, although the calls can be an annoyance, it didn?t severely bother me until recently. Over the past year, it seems that the call percentage has gone up substantially, resulting in anywhere from 3-5 per day (sometimes as many as three in a single hour).
Now ? Over the last three years (approx.), I have made several attempts to contact Thrifty car rental in order to correct this error. The last time I attempted calling in (five months ago), I was transferred from person to person for two hours ? literally. It ended when I was finally transferred to the Voicemail of Rhonda (whose last name I cannot immediately remember). I was furious at the time, and left her a very detailed voicemail, describing my situation. She never returned my call.
I dealt with it for another few months, until finally sending in an email to your corporate address (corpsales@thrifty.com). In my email, I informed that I would (from that point on) be directing ALL calls intended for Thrifty Car Rental to Dollar Rent-a-car (206)433-6776. Due to the nature of my email, I received two calls that afternoon ? The first was from Rhonda, and the second was from Laurie Carlson. They both asked me several questions, and determined that the issue would be an easy one to resolve. They both assured me that they would call me within a day or two. I never received a call from either.
This afternoon (11:23AM), I sent another email to the corporate email address, expressing my disgust for the way the situation has been handled thus far ? mostly due to the fact that I had not heard anything from Rhonda or Laurie in 13 days. At the time of the email, I informed that I had so far referred 22 customers to Dollar Rent-a-car. That number is now up to 24.
Laurie gave me a call a few hours after I sent out the email. Apparently, Rhonda told her that she called (and spoke to me) a week ago ? this is absolutely not true. Laurie recommended that I give DEX a call in order to fix the situation ? I am blown away by this ?effort? to resolve the issue.
The utter lack of competence and negligence is amazing to me. This is something I have dealt with for eight years, and have always done ?what I thought was right?. I am completely done assisting this corporation any further. As I stated in my email 13 days ago, I will continue referring customers to Dollar rent-a-car. Today, I will start keeping detailed records of all ?misdirected? calls.
I see three possible resolutions:
1. Thrifty purchases my phone number from me.
2. Thrifty begins giving me a percentage of revenue from all clients referred through me.
3. I sell or refer to Dollar rent-a-car.
Please think this over, and get back to me at your earliest convenience,
Thank you.
UPDATE4 (03-28-08):
The CEO replied to my email! Any lawyers in the house? What's a reasonable amount?? See below:
Thank you for making me aware of this situation. We acquired our Thrifty licensee in Seattle/Portland about 9 months ago so most likely his operations created the original problem. Nonetheless, it appears that we have had more than ample time to address the problem, although in the case of printed material the errors sometimes linger for years in the public domain. I apologize to you for the inconvenience this has caused you and assure you our attention is now focused on correcting/minimizing the number of places the incorrect number is displayed.
Recognizing that a total fix may not be immediately possible (printed material already distributed) we would consider reasonable compensation as suggested in your option number 1 below. What do you have in mind? Once again, my apologies and be assured that regardless of your response we will undertake actions, within our control, to mitigate the impact on you immediately. Thank you.
Gary L. Paxton
UPDATE#5 (03-28-08):
I will be replying to the CEO's email with the following (I have not yet sent this email, so if you have any comments, please post!). Note: If he should low-ball me or decline, then I will begin analyzing the actual finances, and coming up with reasonable numbers of my own.
Mr. Paxton,
I would be happy to sell you the rights to my phone number for reasonable compensation, as mentioned in option one. Would it be possible to have your finance team develop a fair market value for the phone number?
Thank you,
UPDATE6 (4-4-08):
Well I got an email from one of the women I had been speaking to over the phone. Things look dire. What's my next move?
Dear Mr. Tizyler,
Gary Paxton, CEO of Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, has asked the marketing department to contact you for resolution on the issue with your telephone number.
First and foremost, I need to state that we will not be purchasing your telephone number. While there may be some online databases which are returning the wrong area code attached to the number, thus causing you to receive calls that are meant for our parking facility, we have no control over those queries, and have no authority to remove a number we do not own from those databases.
As to your concern about your number appearing in print, again, that is an area out of our control. Once a print piece is published, it can linger for many years. Our research has indicated that most of the Seattle metropolitan area was under the single "XXX" area code until 1995, when parts of the metro area were designated with the "XXX" area code. Then the area was split again in 1997 when "XXX" and "XXX" were added. Any print material referring to our parking facility for local use in the Seattle area may or may not have included an area code if it was published prior to 1995.
We have performed extensive research with our advertising agencies and can assure you that no new material will be created with the "XXX" area code preceding the number for our facility, and we have taken steps with online providers who will allow us to do so to remove any entries which connect area code "XXX" with our facility's telephone number.
While I can certainly understand that continuing to receive calls for someone other than yourself on your personal telephone can be a nuisance, this is not a nuisance our company is responsible for creating. That being said however, we are willing to assume the cost of changing your telephone number for you to assure that this ceases to be an issue for you. That is the only solution that will eliminate your receiving calls for our facility.
If you would like me to do that for you, please contact me at your earliest convenience.
ORIGINAL EMAIL:
To whom it may concern,
Despite several attempts to get in contact with someone at your corporate office, I have still not received any call or email back. This is my final notice to your company regarding this matter.
For the last eight years, I have been receiving phone calls from potential Thrifty Car Rental customers. I have a phone number very similar to the Thrifty phone number used at Seatac airport ? This should not be an issue, however, it appears that your marketing department has made an extremely large mistake, accidently placing my phone number (instead of yours) in all sorts of places.
On average, I receive anywhere between 4-8 calls per day, which should have been destined for Thrifty. Upon asking these patrons where they received my phone number, I have received the following input:
Keychains; Flyers; 411 Directory Service; GOOG-411; 0-Operator; Google.com; Yahoo.com; many different websites, etc?
I have put up with this for nearly a decade now. If you ever get a chance to speak with any of these people who have been misdirected, they will all tell you that I _always_ inform them of the mistake that has been made, and promptly direct them to the correct phone number for Thrifty Parking. They are usually extremely courteous regarding the matter, and quite understanding. I have decided that I am done doing this.
I don?t know how much revenue the average customer generates, however, I do know that the average customer wants to park their car anywhere from 3 to 5 days. In an average week, I will get at least 20 phone calls for Thrifty (mind you, I have undeniable records to prove this); assuming that the average patron will be spending $75, that equates to $1500 PER WEEK.
Starting today, I will be redirecting ALL calls to your competitor, Dollar Rent-a-car ((206) 433-6776).
Please email me back or give me a call if you would like to discuss this further.
Have a nice day,
UPDATE1 (03-14-08):
I have now gotten two phone calls from the Thrifty corporate offices. I'm under the impression that the "call-diversion" threat has had a large impact.
Both calls were women who were apologizing profusely, following up with a bunch of questions. They will be getting back to me.
UPDATE2 (03-27-08):
I sent another email to them after not hearing back for 2 weeks. Thoughts?
To whom it may concern,
After sending my previous email, I was immediately impressed when I received two phone calls from your corporate office in an attempt to fix this issue. My impression of your service has once again turned from praise to disgust, as I have not received any further correspondence.
Both corporate employees I spoke with (Rhonda, and one other) were quite sure that the issue I am encountering is due to a reminiscing mistake, made by the marketing department, several years ago. They were also quite sure that the ?typo? could only be found online, and would be ?quite easy to fix?. I have no doubt that because of this, they decided that this was not a large enough issue to ?put time into?.
I am proud to announce that since speaking with Rhonda I have been keeping track of how my phone number was mistakenly found, and many referrals are still coming from physical misprints. To give another idea of the extreme nature of this issue: In the past 13 days, I have thus far received 22 phone calls which were intended for Thrifty. I also happily report that I have referred all 22 of these callers to Dollar rent-a-car (a phone number I have since memorized), after kindly explaining how terrible Thrifty has handled this situation. Every single one of these people thanked me gratuitously for saving them any time and effort that they would have potentially wasted.
I am not an accountant, and I do not know how much money the average customer generates. I do, however, know that the 22 calls I diverted probably would have generated a fair amount of money.
If you would like to further discuss this, feel free to give me a call.
Have a nice day,
UPDATE3 (03-27-08):
I got another call from one of the same women at Thrifty. She recommended that I call DEX and fix the issue myself. After doing some research and getting help from forum members, I have decided to email their CEO, along with the VP of sales, and one other guy. Is the following email too harsh? Does it get my point across? Will it benefit me? Any advice would be great.
Hello,
Firstly, I would like to summarize the events which I have been dealing with:
For the past eight years, I have been receiving ?wrong number? calls on my mobile phone, which were intended for Thrifty Car Rental (Thrifty Parking at Seatac, to be exact). When this first began, I attributed the events to user error, and assumed that I had a similar phone number to that of Thrifty. I soon discovered that Thrifty?s marketing department had put the wrong phone number in many different places on several mediums. To date, these misprints have been found in/on: Keychains, Flyers, 411 Directory Service, GOOG-411, 0-Operator, Google.com, Yahoo.com, and many (yes many) more.
This is something which began slowly, but quickly ramped up into a daily event, which I would usually deal with several times per day. In the vast majority of cases I would kindly inform the caller of their error, inform them of my situation, and kindly give them the correct phone number. Although I doubt any Thrifty employee ever looked into this, I would estimate that hundreds, if not thousands, of Thrifty customers were referred directly from me; most of the time in a better mood than when they originally called (I usually chat with them for a minute). Now, although the calls can be an annoyance, it didn?t severely bother me until recently. Over the past year, it seems that the call percentage has gone up substantially, resulting in anywhere from 3-5 per day (sometimes as many as three in a single hour).
Now ? Over the last three years (approx.), I have made several attempts to contact Thrifty car rental in order to correct this error. The last time I attempted calling in (five months ago), I was transferred from person to person for two hours ? literally. It ended when I was finally transferred to the Voicemail of Rhonda (whose last name I cannot immediately remember). I was furious at the time, and left her a very detailed voicemail, describing my situation. She never returned my call.
I dealt with it for another few months, until finally sending in an email to your corporate address (corpsales@thrifty.com). In my email, I informed that I would (from that point on) be directing ALL calls intended for Thrifty Car Rental to Dollar Rent-a-car (206)433-6776. Due to the nature of my email, I received two calls that afternoon ? The first was from Rhonda, and the second was from Laurie Carlson. They both asked me several questions, and determined that the issue would be an easy one to resolve. They both assured me that they would call me within a day or two. I never received a call from either.
This afternoon (11:23AM), I sent another email to the corporate email address, expressing my disgust for the way the situation has been handled thus far ? mostly due to the fact that I had not heard anything from Rhonda or Laurie in 13 days. At the time of the email, I informed that I had so far referred 22 customers to Dollar Rent-a-car. That number is now up to 24.
Laurie gave me a call a few hours after I sent out the email. Apparently, Rhonda told her that she called (and spoke to me) a week ago ? this is absolutely not true. Laurie recommended that I give DEX a call in order to fix the situation ? I am blown away by this ?effort? to resolve the issue.
The utter lack of competence and negligence is amazing to me. This is something I have dealt with for eight years, and have always done ?what I thought was right?. I am completely done assisting this corporation any further. As I stated in my email 13 days ago, I will continue referring customers to Dollar rent-a-car. Today, I will start keeping detailed records of all ?misdirected? calls.
I see three possible resolutions:
1. Thrifty purchases my phone number from me.
2. Thrifty begins giving me a percentage of revenue from all clients referred through me.
3. I sell or refer to Dollar rent-a-car.
Please think this over, and get back to me at your earliest convenience,
Thank you.
UPDATE4 (03-28-08):
The CEO replied to my email! Any lawyers in the house? What's a reasonable amount?? See below:
Thank you for making me aware of this situation. We acquired our Thrifty licensee in Seattle/Portland about 9 months ago so most likely his operations created the original problem. Nonetheless, it appears that we have had more than ample time to address the problem, although in the case of printed material the errors sometimes linger for years in the public domain. I apologize to you for the inconvenience this has caused you and assure you our attention is now focused on correcting/minimizing the number of places the incorrect number is displayed.
Recognizing that a total fix may not be immediately possible (printed material already distributed) we would consider reasonable compensation as suggested in your option number 1 below. What do you have in mind? Once again, my apologies and be assured that regardless of your response we will undertake actions, within our control, to mitigate the impact on you immediately. Thank you.
Gary L. Paxton
UPDATE#5 (03-28-08):
I will be replying to the CEO's email with the following (I have not yet sent this email, so if you have any comments, please post!). Note: If he should low-ball me or decline, then I will begin analyzing the actual finances, and coming up with reasonable numbers of my own.
Mr. Paxton,
I would be happy to sell you the rights to my phone number for reasonable compensation, as mentioned in option one. Would it be possible to have your finance team develop a fair market value for the phone number?
Thank you,
UPDATE6 (4-4-08):
Well I got an email from one of the women I had been speaking to over the phone. Things look dire. What's my next move?
Dear Mr. Tizyler,
Gary Paxton, CEO of Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, has asked the marketing department to contact you for resolution on the issue with your telephone number.
First and foremost, I need to state that we will not be purchasing your telephone number. While there may be some online databases which are returning the wrong area code attached to the number, thus causing you to receive calls that are meant for our parking facility, we have no control over those queries, and have no authority to remove a number we do not own from those databases.
As to your concern about your number appearing in print, again, that is an area out of our control. Once a print piece is published, it can linger for many years. Our research has indicated that most of the Seattle metropolitan area was under the single "XXX" area code until 1995, when parts of the metro area were designated with the "XXX" area code. Then the area was split again in 1997 when "XXX" and "XXX" were added. Any print material referring to our parking facility for local use in the Seattle area may or may not have included an area code if it was published prior to 1995.
We have performed extensive research with our advertising agencies and can assure you that no new material will be created with the "XXX" area code preceding the number for our facility, and we have taken steps with online providers who will allow us to do so to remove any entries which connect area code "XXX" with our facility's telephone number.
While I can certainly understand that continuing to receive calls for someone other than yourself on your personal telephone can be a nuisance, this is not a nuisance our company is responsible for creating. That being said however, we are willing to assume the cost of changing your telephone number for you to assure that this ceases to be an issue for you. That is the only solution that will eliminate your receiving calls for our facility.
If you would like me to do that for you, please contact me at your earliest convenience.
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