A few weeks ago, I received a fax questionnaire asking me to complete basic information about my company (contacts, areas of activity, etc.) for inclusion in some directory, without giving much details about themselves. Basic and harmless so I faxed it back and forgot about it.
Two days ago a lady contacted me to congratulate me on being approved and said she needed to interview me to complete a detailed profile before publication. The timing for me was wrong so she offered to call back the next day. She did. She was very professional and polite on the phone as she started to ask me many questions about myself and my company. When asked, she told me it would take about 15 minutes. After about 10 minutes, and while answering her questions, I started to wonder how that company can spend so much time on the phone, instead of just sending their candidates a questionnaire by e-mail. I though this was very inefficient, of she was going to try to sell me something. Sure enough, she then started on a long "reading" of a carefully written sales pitch about the values of some platinum plan for $700.00 etc. Without any opportunity for me to place a word edgewise in what was now a one way conversation.
When I finally cut her off (and apologized), I told her that she was obviously advertising and that as this form of advertising did not fit in my advertising plan, I was not interested. She then changed the tone of her voice and told me very unprofessionally that she was sorry I could not make the right decision, (!!!). I found this to be below any acceptable standard of conducting business, hence why I am spending my time writing this.
I see that at least two other persons have complained about Stanford on this site. I cannot feel sorry for them as I believe they were deceived, but not ripped-off. I feel the same way about grown-up, intelligent, and educated people, who answered (and some still do) letters from unknown business contacts in Nigeria.
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