APS Selling Membership Lists?

APS does not work for International members and this is why I joined the Royal Philatelic Society of CANADA and will not renew my membership next year (2018) with APS. Very nice monthly review with lots ++ of adds. That is it....no circuits etc. We shall see what the discouts really represent in % in Canada ?

I guess I should have posted this for APS members curious about the offer: http://www.officediscounts.org/aps

As I mentioned, we often get requests for more information from club officers because it helps local chapters save on things like printing, etc.

Office Depot is STAPLES in Canada......but I have not received any card for the 80%.........

If you click on the link I provided in my post, you should be able to request the card and have it sent to your home. If you run into an issue, please feel free to contact me at scott@stamps.org.

Thank you Scott. I appreciate your contributions here.

KirkS

Just to clarify, the discount is "up to 80% off preferred products", not "80% discount" off everything. Obviously, any discount is better than no discount. But don't go expecting to get 80% discount on most items/services you want to purchase.

I agree with KirkS, that Scott's response to this thread is greatly appreciated. It's always good to see APS get more involved in online stamp forums with ordinary collectors, many of whom are not APS members but potential future APS members.

It is extremely surprising to see the APS involved with any marketing of their membership list due to a very serious past experience when thieves purchased the list and then targeted members. Despite any safeguards put in place, the idea of trying to profit from the list again shows a strange disregard for that past history and the hazards involved.

I do try to keep up with the discussions in case there are questions about the APS. I may not catch them all, which is why I also place my email address out there as often as possible. We serve the whole hobby.




I am aware that we had issues relating to the APS membership directory, but not as a result of a list purchase. The directory was discontinued as a result.

Any member contact is either through a dealer member purchase of address labels, a local APS chapter promoting their club or through an authorized agreement by the Board. These are vetted processes to provide protection to the membership. If an APS member prefers not to receive mailings from anyone, we provide all the guidance to opt out.

I get regular and routine requests to contact other members relating to an article or some other purpose and instead offer to relay the contact through our headquarters instead of providing address information.

If any member ever receives a mailing connected to the APS that causes concern, they can contact me directly at scott@stamps.org or contact us by phone at 814-933-3803.

Yes, I go there maybe once a year and spend at least $10.00. That's .80 cents if I were to get the full 80%. What a deal!

After reading Scott English's explanation, I'm just going to discard the card.

Don

80% is $8.00 not .80

You are absolutely correct. Thanks for the correction. I never was very good at math.


Don

My opinion, the default ought to be opt-out and not opt-in.
Don

That policy would require ending the program because the commercial partners would be given too small a list to commercially justify creating a co-marketing mailing. It would probably have 10 names on it. Not realistic, in my opinion. The co-marketer expects a non-zero conversion rate for going to the trouble of creating the mailing.

Chris

Chris,
I would agree with that logic if membership was free like this forum but it is not. I am also unsure of the wisdom of counting on most people to be either apathetic or asleep just to populate a mailing list. In an era where membership is falling and privacy concerns are growing, there seems to be plenty of reason to revisit the justifications for this program.

And if your opinion is correct, that the program would attract 10 people who would voluntarily opt in, then we can safely assume that this is not something that APS should be 'sneaking' by members. This is a very different era than years ago when our privacy concerns were mostly about getting a bit more junk mail in our mailboxes. (It is bad enough that my television is spying on me!) And while I might trust APS to guard my private information can this trust be safely extended to the other third parties in this digitally connected age?

You are a lawyer so I am sure you understand the legal exposure involved if Office Depot gets hacked and an APS member, who has never shopped at Office Depot, has their personal data then stolen and published strictly due to the default being 'opt in' instead of 'opt out'.

But none of us should either be condemning or supporting this program until we have more facts and a better understanding. A basic understanding would include answers to core questions like 'How much income does APS actual generate with this program?' 'How many APS members are active in this program?' 'How many members have opted out?' I do not recall any polls or others methods for taking the membership temperature on this privacy topic but if this exists then this would also be important to know. Did the APS do discovery on the privacy track record of these third parties and if so, what were they? How much of the member list data is being shared?

If recent elections across the world have shown anything they have demonstrated that that those in power, and those whom are considering running for positions of power, need to have their finger on the pulse of their electorate. It would be a good idea to revisit previous cost/benefit decisions made when times were very different.

We know one thing for sure, for whatever reason(s) the previous direction of APS is not working on retaining membership levels. Strong leadership is required and strong leadership means revisiting the status quo. It is not yet time for panic, but banking on Office Depot never getting hacked seems to me to be a recipe for a disaster.
Don