STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

honey · Gucci

question

Becca · Kate Spade

I have no idea but I would think that stuff should be private. Anyways, that's really strange.

cc · Marc Jacobs

That's so bizarre. I don't understand how they could get that information.

It might be something that varies from state to state or institution to institution but when verifying people's resumes/cv's I've often had to call schools to confirm that the person graduated and I've always been told that they can't give out any information. The only times I've ever gotten a confirmation of attendance/graduation is if someone in the alumni office volunteered to look in the yearbook - I guess because it's a published work there is an understanding that whatever information is in the yearbook can be released to the public, unlike school records which are normally kept confidential.

Kari · Dooney & Bourke

Are you serious? A random letter completely out of nowhere? That scares me! Is it adressed to you personally? I am intrigued. I would definitely call the school and the alumni department and ask them.

Andrea Julia · Coach

I'm wondering if it is really a form letter that comes from an egg-buying place (sorry, don't know how else to refer to it) that they make look like a personal letter so they can rope you in. They may have thought by using something that may make you feel a connection with the couple (a shared college), it would make you more likely to respond. Then, if you were interested and called the number, they would be like "Well, that family found a donor, but there are many more families just like that that need your help." I think it is easy enough for a business to get information on where you went to college. They could have bought that information from any number of places. Still, I don't think this sort of company should be so advertising so aggressively since it is a decision people can come to regret. I know they advertise in student newspapers and such, but contacting people directly is crossing the line.

They gave you a phone number, right? If so, I think you should call it. If it is a business, tell them not to contact you anymore. If it ends up being a real person who contacted you, let her know you are not interested and as a fellow _____ alum, you wish her the best, but would she mind telling you where she got your information? Then you can decide what to do from there.

ETA: Actually, before calling, I would see if I could find out more online by doing a reverse phone look-up on switchboard and doing a search on Yahoo! with the phone number surrounded by quotation marks.

-- Edited by Andrea Julia at 08:57, 2005-07-15