Text Spam

Most of you probably know this one. Your mobile beeps and you've got a text about compensation for an accident you were in. Or that you were mis-sold PPI. But I haven't been in an accident since I went base over apex on the dance floor some years ago at Bromyard (very dramatic, huge crash, but no damage to me). And I could tell at a glance that PPI was a rip-off.

How do they get our numbers? A junk text from Optical Express to my work and personal mobiles got me investigating.

A Google for "Optical Express" spam got about 125,000 results. A lot of people have received spam from them by text or email. I'm very careful about giving out my contact details so I decided to ask them where they'd got my numbers from.


They answered: 

We employ the services of third party marketing companies who send out email and SMS communications on our behalf to their own database where contact information has been collated from a form you may have completed online. This would have been for another service or company whereby you have not opted out of receiving promotional offers from third parties, such as Optical Express. In this case the company that sent the communication was Revive.

So I asked Revive Management the same question. Within a few seconds of my email, I had an unbelievable auto response:

Thanks for your email, your information has been immediately removed
from all databases.

To give you a bit of background Revive sources it's marketing lists
from a range of online and offline sources - predominantly surveys,
competitions, warranty cards and online insurance quotations.

If you require anything further please call 0203 5442087.

They actually rang me next day and explained that in their database, both of my numbers were associated with somebody else's name and that both of these people had entered an on-line competition and must have entered their phone numbers incorrectly.

It could be true.

If you get an unwanted text from Optical Express, do complain to enquiries@opticalexpress.com and see if you end up with a similar explanation...