I've Tried That - We lose money so you don't have to!

It took a while, but I finally got my kit from Globalmailing.net. It cost me $32 to check my predictions, some of which were wrong. If you want to read what I thought we were getting into, click here for the first part of this review.

Globalmailing.net and Its Claims

Globalmailing.net is the Web site associated with National Data Management, which is apparently a real brick-and-mortar business in New Jersey. It’s a mailing list compiler. Here is how it describes itself in its materials:

Name lists are fresh names and addresses of individuals that are compiled and sorted by list brokers such as National Data Management. Our company markets these names to small companies that may request 200 to 1,000 names, as well as large corporations that purchase 10 to 50 thousand per order. NDM markets hundreds of thousands of names to American small businesses and corporations on a continual basis.

So did you ever wonder how you get on so many junk mail lists? It’s in part because of companies like Globalmailing.net or National Data Management. I’ll use “NDM” for the rest of this post, but I’m talking about the same company.

NDM will pay you $2 (which is not true; it’s $1) for every name and envelope you process and it claims that you can make money easily and can do most of the work at home. From what I’ve seen so far, this is not a scam. You can probably actually make some money doing this, but I doubt it’s as much as the Web site claims.

What’s In the Instructions Kit?

When you “apply” to be a home worker for NDM, you send $32 and the company sends you instructions and materials to help you get started. Here is what my money bought me:

10 sheets of paper printed on one side, which include:

• A cover sheet with clip-art graphic
• A welcome letter that congratulates me for taking the first step toward “rewarding home work.” It also says I will earn $1 per name processed. Uh-oh. The Web site said $2. I just got a 50% pay cut and I haven’t even started!
• Four pages of instructions about how to get names and addressses
• A page containing contact information for many newspaper agencies so that I can place classified ads.
• Two official payment vouchers
• Two original flyers that I will need to photocopy

I feel a little bit ripped off.

How Does It Work?

I am supposed to collect names and addresses of people interested in working from home. Here’s how the “kit” tells me to do that:

1. Post my “free” fliers where a lot of people will see them. The fliers advertise “Help Wanted! Easy work, excellent pay,” and lists benefits of working from home. For more information, people are supposed to send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to NDM at my address.
2. When I get the envelopes, I open them and sort them into two piles: the original, postmarked envelope and the fresh, self-addressed one.
3. When I have 10 or more, I send both piles to NDM along with a payment voucher, and they send me a check: $1 for each verified fresh envelope.

That’s it. Costs to me: driving around to post the fliers, photocopies, my time, postage to send the envelopes to NDM.

Oh, one kind of cheesy detail: remember how the Web site says you will earn $2 for each envelope, but my materials say only $1? Here’s how they work around that pesky problem:

To double your earnings to $2 per envelope, simply use the fliers that request the inquirer to send $1.

Blech. Send me $1 and I’ll do you the favor of selling your name to a junk-mail list compiler. That’s low.

Can it work? I don’t see why not. As I said, I’m feeling a little hosed by the shoddy quality of the material, but I’m going to post the fliers and see what happens. I feel a little dirty gathering names and addresses to sell to a junk-mail company, but hey, I can tolerate a lot of dirt if it’s coated in cash.