"Historicon Selling our data?" Topic

Iv received this email and have become increasingly worried about my data security!

Hi,

This is an outstanding offer for Historical Miniatures Gaming Society 2018 Exhibitors!!

I am writing to check if you would be interested in acquiring the list of attendees for your marketing and sales initiatives.

This is an opportunity to acquire list of 9,137 attendees contact details for a robust marketing campaign which will eventually help you convert the compiled leads in to phenomenal sales deal.

You will receive the file for permanent usage where you can use this list for multiple campaigns and cold calling. Please find below mentioned data fields for your review.

Company Name, Company URL, Contact Name, Title, Phone number, Fax Number, Email Address, Company Address, Industry type, SIC Code, and Social Media Link.

Please revert with your interest to get you connected with our Business Development Manager, who will send out the counts, pricing and samples for your review.

Best Regards,

James Amato
Marketing and Communication

To be able to do that legally I thought that the attendees needed to give their consent. Maybe rules are different in the US.

Since the letter is poorly written I would think it was a scam, but you never know with HMGS. Perhaps someone from the BOD will weigh in with an explanation. Or more likely hide from their constituents. Although, I'm sure the HMGS apologists will be out in force in no time.

Rules probably are different, Gildas. There are some provisions about "business partners" and "existing business relationships" which might apply here. But the Board should be a little more careful about how they abuse their voters.

That said, 9,137 attendees can't just be Historicon, unless they drew from multiple years with duplicates. A full year or more of conventions? Everyone they roped into the wonderful new improved "community" on the web site? I'll be interested when we find out.

9137 different attendees is probably closer to 5-10 years of data

Yep, looks from the grammar, structure of the 'letter'
to be a scam.

And certainly no where near 9,000 plus attendees.

Notice the OP is brand-new to this site, too.

Hmmmm…….

As the new Marketing & Communications Director on the HMGS BoD, I am unaware of any such arrangement with a third-party (and no, I'm not hiding).

As David E. and Sundance said, at first pass, it looks like a scam, so in the interim, if anyone gets an email like this please DO NOT click on any links in the email

BigRich, please forward the email to
communications@hmgs.org
so we can see the email directly. I will then report back our findings.

As far as Sundance and Robert Piepenbrink's speculations about HMGS's use of attendee data, let me state the following…
I will ensure that the society's by-laws, regulations, policies and processes do everything they can to protect our member and guest information, and that we will only share your data with your permission.
For those "business partners" that we need to share data with – such as Your Membership (the YM system that hosts HMGS.org and the membership data) – I will ensure that their data sharing policies DO NOT allow them to share our member and guest information.

John Hollier

I tried for an hour and a half to preregister on line. Trying to bypass all that "create a profile" nonsense, I gave up in disgust at what should have been a simple task to just take my damn money.
I sent a frustrated email and got an immediate reply. The most annoying part of the reply was "surely you understand the need for security?"
There is only a "need for security" if HMGS were to collect personal data. I see absolutely no need for HMGS to wish to collect such data.
Now I see that HMGS does have such a need, and that's so they can sell it.

Why can't they just have a guy with a cigar box sitting at the registration desk on site?
Give him $25 USD cash and get a white badge for Saturday. I don't need a guy struggling with a slow computer. That explains why I once stood in line for an hour while the line crawled.

Because they want to assemble a mailing list, and anything involving cash is very high risk of fraud and theft.

As a non-profit with members we're required by law to be able to communicate with those members for purposes such as elections. HMGS is not trying to sell anyone's data. This is just a scam and not from HMGS at all. This person might be selling you "a" list but not "our" list. Please don't respond to these emails, even just to complain to him, as you'll likely be moved up their list as a confirmed active email address and will likely receive many more attempts.

Thanks and thank you everyone who came out to Historicon. We hope you had a great time.
Joby

As a previous BOD member no HMGS mailing list has been sold in the last 7 years. Are you by chance an exhibitor ?

link

link to the scammer and

link

The idea that I or anyone else on the HMGS Board of Directors is selling member or vendor data is just ridiculous. The notice is a scam and phishing attempt, plain and simple. I receive several every week. Just delete them and don't click on any links.
John Spiess
Treasurer
HMGS, Inc.

Ok. I was wrong. HMGS is not selling our data.
But I still see no need to collect it in the first place.

They probably have a list to sell. But it won't be a list of wargamers.

Thank you--John and Ed especially. I was also unable to connect any "James Amato" with HMGS. Though, sadly, bad grammar and spelling no longer mean a communication isn't legitimate and official. (Scroll through the Historicon PEL to confirm any doubts about the state of modern education.)

Once in my teens I placed an ad in the Avalon Hill General, and the General misspelled my name in a unique way. I could track the resulting mailing list for the nest 10+ years.

I've been attending HMGS shows for 15 years as a vendor and used to get those all the time, but they came in the mail. They wanted money for access to a database or something like that.

I just tossed them away when they came in.

"I tried for an hour and a half to preregister on line. Trying to bypass all that "create a profile" nonsense, I gave up in disgust at what should have been a simple task to just take my damn money."

Kind of hard to do… lol. The reason for an ID and Password is so you can log back into your account at a future date.

What site DOES NOT make you create an ID & Password??

TRU

I just wonder why the OP stated it as "Historicon selling our Data?"

Though, sadly, bad grammar and spelling no longer mean a communication isn't legitimate and official. (Scroll through the Historicon PEL to confirm any doubts about the state of modern education.)
…..………

I could track the resulting mailing list for the nest 10+ years.

::cough cough::

Touche!

TRUgamer.
Why do I NEED an account?
Take my money. Give me a ticket. Why is an account necessary? Why would I want to log in at a future date? From the incomplete "profile" I set up, I'm already being spammed by HMGS daily with unwanted news.
Do I need an account to go and buy pork chops at Quinn's Supermarket? Or orange juice? Beer? Gasoline? Underwear? So why does HMGS need me to have an account?

This is nothing but Cool Kids deciding that since they like Facebook, everyone should.

Yes but we know nothing about the membership with out info how do we target potential new members?

No.

Winston Smith

" I'm already being spammed by HMGS daily with unwanted news. "

You can turn the emails off in the hmgs site.

If HMGS knows nothing about you then they can not keep you informed of future conventions. So any previous outreach goes right in the toilet.
Marketing 101.

Then you will be able to register or preregister quicker in the future.

If you are a HMGS member, then with an account you will be able to vote in the elections online. It appears the first election with online voting increased voting quite nicely and I would expect the trend will continue.

I am not sure why the complaints about a process that will provide benefits are necessary. I recall many people being upset that con registration the old way was a pain in the bum and took too long. Now it takes 5 minutes and there are still gripes.

The problem, Lon, is that I was on line for an hour and a half and STILL could not register. I wanted to.
All the bells and whistles did me no good whatsoever.

I'm not the smartest kid on the block, but it sure didn't take any where close to an hour and a half.

Tom

Unless you deliberately go ut of your way to hide who you are.. registration at a kiosk took 2 mins… and reg in line.. which was NEVER very long.. took a few more….

If it took you an hour and a half, I don't know what the issue was…. please elaborate.

"TRUgamer.
Why do I NEED an account?
Take my money. Give me a ticket. Why is an account necessary? Why would I want to log in at a future date? From the incomplete "profile" I set up, I'm already being spammed by HMGS daily with unwanted news.
Do I need an account to go and buy pork chops at Quinn's Supermarket? Or orange juice? Beer? Gasoline? Underwear? So why does HMGS need me to have an account?

This is nothing but Cool Kids deciding that since they like Facebook, everyone should."
….

I understand its not for everyone… but t's definitely not Facebook. I don't like FB either! Think of it as online banking… I couldn't imagine life without it!

I doubt I'll be able to convince you Winston, but wouldn't you want to be able to control your email alerts or stop them all together?, Register for a game before the convention? Change a game registration because you now have a conflict? Send an email to other HMGS members? Share an event or an experience? Buy a t-shirt or a Flea Market table? just a few reasons off the top of my head.
One can choose to go with the waves or try to stand firm, but either way your going along with the tide. It's just a truth of life.

TRU

PS. Registration took seconds with my barcode… buying a t-shirt took me over 10 mins! lol.

Only a week and a half before the show, it took me no more than 10 minutes to pre-register online. When I got there at 9:30am Friday---a pretty busy time, in general…there was no line at the pre-reg area and it took about a whole 10 seconds to get my badge.

What fuss?

…….I was on line for an hour and a half and STILL could not register.

Winston, can you find a local 10 year old to help you?

I sell insurance I never thought to go to a convention and sell insurance and write it off as a business expense.

Maybe the Nigerian Banking Commission has branched out into wargaming.