If you ever receive a letter from Cambridge Who’s Who or any other Who’s Who, just know that it’s nothing more than a marketing scam. I was instantly suspicious when I get this letter raving about what a huge success I am in business and “Inclusion is considered by many as the single highest mark of achievement.” OH, RILLY? Ha!
These assholes have gone by Madison Who’s Who, Manchester Who’s Who and gods know how many other incarnations. As a matter of fact, if you type in any of these names you’ll end up at the Cambridge Who’s Who website. Coincidence. Hardly.
So, I decide to find out what a scam it is by filling out their stupid form and mailing it in. Sure enough, a couple of weeks later I get a call from someone who is clearly a marketer wanting to “interview” me for my biographical info but I was feeling crappy and told them to call back in a few weeks. They did – pernicious, they are! – but it was the week of my Yule dinner and I didn’t have time for jackassery so I told them to call back after the holidays. By gods, THEY DID! Today!
Har!! So the chick goes into the “interview” but only after advising me that the “interview” was being recorded – this is because they want to record you saying YES to their scam. That way they have something with which to fight you in court if you figure out you’ve been scammed and try to get a refund. During the “interview” I was a smart ass. I was rude. I told her that I’d gotten another letter from her company so I knew this was a scam. Despite all this, the marketer soldiered on and got to the Happy Ending: “So, would you like the Platinum Package or the Gold Package?”
HAHAHAHAHA! I laughed and told her that I’m not buying anything. Like a good little marketer, she proceeded to tell me why I REALLY needed to spend $799 (with the first easy installment of $199!!). I laughed some more. Poor girl. I hope she makes decent money scamming people. The “complementary” membership offers a listing in the online version of Cambridge Who’s Who, but if you read the fine print, ONLY MEMBERS WHO LOG IN can see these free listings!! Which means they are completely worthless.
So, after all this, the girl wished me all the best and I hung up. Then I went to gather more info about the scam. Here ya go:
From the Annoyed Librarian, who tears it UP! Great one! OMG, here’s a post to her blog by someone who used to work for the assholes in question:
“Here is more of the truth! One of the owners of EMPIRE WHOS WHO, parted ways and created MANCHESTER WHOS WHO. Then one of these companies changed their name to METROPOLITAN WHOS WHO. Then an employee of EMPIRE WHOS WHO, left and created MADISON WHOS WHO. Then EMPIRE WHOS WHO and MANCHESTER WHOS WHO made up and created CAMBRIDGE WHOS WHO. Then an employee of MADISON WHOS WHO parted and created EMERALD WHOS WHO. How do I know this? I worked there and the owners brag about how much money they steal and try and sue each other for copying each others scam!!!” posted by Anonymous
There are plenty of other posts all over about these scams, you can try scam.com, but their site is so slow it’s hardly worth it. Just do a Google search – you’ll get tons of hits.
Their scam must be working, they are still in business. Glad I’m smart enough to avoid such crap.