Hey PowerCo:  I Do NOT Appreciate You Giving Out My Email Address to Research Companies . . . Especially Those Who Treat YOUR Customers with Utter Contempt (& Spam Them)

So PowerCo, this highly presumptuous action on your part has REALLY. PISSED. ME. OFF.

And so it's probably doing the same to many others in your "customer base" . . . . who, like me, didn't even realise we were your customers. NOR how you obtained our email addresses.

Two weeks ago, I received an email from a "Key Research", instructing me to click through to some survey form - whereby, no doubt, I would be asked to start providing information about myself. The email provided a "unique ID number" that I was instructed to use (i.e. to link my information with me).

I didn't do any of that. Instead, I emailed the company and asked the following two questions:

Please advise by what legal means you are in possession of my email address.

Please advise what other information you hold relating to my account.

I sent that email on May 22 - and never received any response.

So I sent a prompter email on May 28, seeking a response. Key Research ignored that, too.

The Moral of the Story for Clients of Research Firms:  Don't Contract Companies That Treat 'YOUR' (Apparently) Customers with Utter Contempt (& Spam Them, To Boot)

So, on Tuesday this week, i.e. June 3, I rang Key Research. I spoke to a "Lauren", who conveniently "hadn't noticed" my two previous emails. She gave me her own email address and promised that she would ensure "someone gets back to you" this time (which, she said, would happen the very next morning).

Predictably, she didn't. Probably didn't have any such intention.

Finally, I decided, therefore, that I'd click into this Key Research / PowerCo survey and see what information they were collecting from people (who don't even know they're "customers" of PowerCo, and probably don't particularly want their personal email addresses handed over to a research company). After a couple of screens, it told me I "don't qualify" because I'm not a business customer.

At that point, if Key Research's "proprietary tools and processes" were as good as their website lauds them to be, their software would have registered my partially-completed survey and the fact that they'd prevented access to the rest of said survey, after telling me I didn't qualify.

You'd think they'd have then stopped spamming me with further emails, still insisting I "complete the survey". But no, this morning, I get my THIRD email from them, keeping on keeping on with their pointless and intrusive insistent messages.

So. PowerCo. Do you want feedback that's actually worth something?

DON'T give out people's email addresses. ESPECIALLY when they have no idea they're apparently even your "customer". And research your "research" firms more diligently, so that they don't thoroughly piss people off (in your name) with their flawed software, incompetent processes, and contempt for YOUR customers.