I have a problem with this.
 

Is it just me?

My son is a Freshman in HS.

He's taking Tennis.

Two days ago I got an email from the coach. Mind you this is only the 2nd full week of school.

Conner is supposed to bring in a list of 20 family / friends email addresses that will be turned over to a third party fundraising organization who will take it from there.

Uhm, you want me to give you family and friends info so you can spam them? Sorry but nope.

Before I even consider that I want to know who this 3rd party is, I want to see their privacy policy, I want to know if those addresses will be used just this once then deleted or will this be on going, I want to know if this 3rd party will share, rent, or sell my friends and families info.

One of my neighbors kids, a couple years older, was in Tennis and she told me they've been doing this 3 years now.

I've looked up the company (https://snap-raise.com/) and no where on their site is a Privacy Policy, EULA, TOC.

I spoke to one of the coaches earlier and expressed my concern and asked for whatever literature they had which is not surprisingly none.

It's all done through the company rep who comes on site to get the data.

I asked to get the reps contact info, he replied he'd have to ask to see if it was OK to pass that along.

Am I crazy or blowing this out of proportion? A company that I've never heard of wants email addresses from friends and family yet they don't publish any information on how they retain or otherwise use that info.

And we are expected to just hand it over?

The entire email I received two days ago.

We will be kicking off our annual fundraiser on Wednesday morning. We need all players to be at the tennis courts by 8:00 with a list of 20 emails of friends and family. The beauty of this fundraiser is that it keeps our kids from having to go door to door. Once the kids submit their emails, it's done! The company we work with takes care of the rest.

Thank you for your support.
Coach B.

Say "no." done.

HELL no...

Hell to the "F" to the no

Trust me, first thing I did.

Just getting a gut check here.

Nope. Would rather sell my friends and family candy/pop corn etc. than give out the emails so they can be spammed for helping support my kids activity. When I was in scholl, my parents made me go sell that stuff if I wanted to participate in the activity. And the fund raising wasn't for normal activities/supplies, it was always for special group events or trips.

No, you are right. People are way too loose with their information. This knocks it out of the park IMHO. I am already pissed off if schools and clubs use outside providers to schedule meetings and post work.

What I do in a case like this is write a check and give it to the coach and tell them to leave me alone with their fundraising. Always works to keep my kids from going door to door selling cookie dough.

G

No its not just you, but you are far more sophisticated in the ways of the interwebs than the average person, so you caught it when none of the other parents did.

Here is what I think is going on. Coach B is unsophisticated in the ways of big data and thinks this is cheap, easy, and harmless. He needs to be educated by someone (like you?) who knows what is going on.
This idea that it's better for the kids if they don't have to go out and meet people face to face and ask them to help the team is so misguided. It's better for the kids if the DO go out and meet people face to face. We are becoming an anonymous society and it's bad, really bad, for us (don't get me started on that).
You could do the school, the coach, and especially the kids a favor if you described to them what the deal is here. Point out that it's not free or harmless, etc. Hopefully, the coach will accept the education.

I just tried calling the companies main number.

You get two extension options press 1 or 2, both go to voicemail.

So I kept calling back pressing additional numbers and found the company directory, #8.

Searched by name for people who are listed under staff on their website.

Not one came up as found in the system.

Hmm.

he'd have to check to see if he can release the info / name to you..

my reply to this..
would have taken a bit of civility ..
are ya stupid or just pretending...

Rika

^^
Good detective work Scott, but does it really matter? What kind of legitimate company would even propose doing this to the friends and families of high school kids?

It's a sales / partner rep.

If he couldn't release it that would be another red flag.

Interestingly enough, I got a call back from banging through their support phone numbers.

Justin called me, saw a missed call.

Just spoke to another guy who is sending me the privacy policy.

I asked him why it's not online?

Surely I can't be the first person to ever ask to see it.

He did not really have an answer.

Bothersome, that's interwebs 101, post a privacy policy, it's not rocket science.

I find people who hide things tend to do so because they have something to hide.

Not always true but a good 80/20 rule.

And just got their privacy policy.

Surprise, only relates to information collected on their site and specifically states it does not apply to info collected offline, which is how they are collecting these email addresses.

I would be talking to the principal about this. And tell him you're considering going to the local authorities and publicizing the matter. It should stop immediately. I'll bet they use they use the kid's name as part of the scam. And believe me they are selling those lists.

You are totally correct in your concerns even if the company is legit.

"I'm sorry but we don't disclose that information"
Anything more may put your son on the bench if the coach is vindictive.

On a more humorous side, I'd be tempted to ask the coach how he would feel about being contacted by your friends in Amway?

I'll be happy to provide a whole bunch of emails that will get delivered and then sent to /dev/null instead of a local mailbox.

How many do you need? :D

On top of all the concerns voiced already, what is the financial arrangement between the school/coach and Snap? They aren't pro-bono, so how much do they keep?

Furthermore, I would be pissed if my name got on that list because "Johnny" was too lazy to call me himself to raise money for the tennis team, but instead offloaded it to someone else.

Call a local news network about this.

Another question to ask is: how much is the company's fee for doing this service?

My concern is somehow they try to take issue with the kid on grade. You didn't participate in the fund raising so here is your C+.

You are on the right path.

Thanks, I've got my own servers and I'm a domain whore so I can cover it.

Actually considering creating 20 virgin uniques to supply and see if they ever pick up anything else other than this companies at some point.

The sad thing about this is that the kids have no skin in it, other than wanting to play on the sports team. Want to do well and travel for tourneys/meets/play offs/etc? Gotta get the fund raising in.

Even sadder is the school gets a small fraction. Lets say every kid on the team gives 20 addresses, and each person contacted donates $100. Thats $2k collected, but the school will see at most half of that.

And then of course there is the whole inviting spam thing and breach of privacy, etc.

The nice thing about running my own domain is that I can configure email how I like. So me-anything@mydomain gets delivered to me@mydomain. Each company I do business with gets their own address - me-company@mydomain. When I start getting spam, I know who sold/gave out/lost due to breach my info. If it gets bad enough, I can turn that alias into a real address and redirect the mail - usually to the published "contact us", "sales" or "CEO" email address.

No and NO!

How much fund raising is required of the football team?

.

Follow the rules. To the letter.

Make a disposable gmail address. Write it down on a piece of paper. Write it 19 more times. Hand it in.

Their rules say family and friends. It does not say 20 different email address.

Tell Coach B you would be glad to give him 20 email addresses...

After he gives you his SS# and credit card info.

Make them do all the legwork to raise donations, that's what they are there for, why should you do it for them? Let them get their own data lists from the school.

If you do that, why do you need a 3rd party?

rjp

"Hahah, wait, what? So I can give you the info for 20 family and friends, but you can't give me the contact for the business person? Do you see how absolutely ridiculous that is?

I'll tell you what, give me all of your friends and families numbers, I'll confirm them, then I'll post them on the Internet, and we'll call it even."

IMHO, there should be an option for parents like yourself concerned with spam that they provide YOU with THEIR email address and YOU send that to your 20 family and friends so they can decide whether or not to participate. Better yet...have a mailing address so a donation can be made with check or money order.

Fundraising is all about creativity and options.

Someone needs to be fired in this case....lol...

I asked my wife about this as she was PTA president when my kids were in HS and my son was playing baseball. Seems it is more widespread than I thought as my nephew was asked to do the same thing when he was in HS, which was about 5 yrs ago. Our BB coach asked for a $200 donation to the team from each player. My wife of course refused to pay, seeing as we'd done fund raising the previous 2 years without the need of a 'donation'. She also knew it was illegal for him to ask for such a donation and when pressured by other parents said she'd be happy to take it up with the Superintendent's Council, of which she was a part. Pay to play is not legal in public schools, at least not ours. YMMV.
To the original poster, you may want to check into what the school district policy says about fund raising for athletics.

I coached three years of high school tennis when I was still a pro, and we never ran our fundraisers like this. I don't agree with it, nor should you. There's much better ways to get funds raised for sports. I can understand the idea to raise the funds, since tennis typically doesn't get the budget that, say, football, or basketball does, but not in this manner. I'd respectfully decline.

Another question, who in their right mind would give money to something like this that comes out of the blue? It would sound suspiciously like a phishing scam if I got one because you submitted the email address.

Just list your 20 friends that are on the school board. I am sure they won't mind... since its for the kids and all.

That's the first thing that occurred to me when I read the OP.

Just have the tennis coach compose an email about the whole thing and reasons they do the fund raiser and let the guys on the team copy and paste it into an email they send out to friends and family.

And there should be no set number of people it is sent to. 20 may be excessive for some... and others may want to send it to more.

Is this a public school?

Just ask the coach if he would collect friends and families phone numbers so they could be called and asked for money to help the team.

No way. Make the kids get off their butts and canvas neighborhoods if they want to fund raise. I'd never hand over money from an unsolicited email.

My son had to sell discount cards for local businesses and restaurants. If they didn't sell them on their own, they were scheduled to stand in front of a grocery store until they did. Luckily my son sold his on his own.

That's actually a good point. Fundraising should be a good learning lesson.



SM you should tell 'em your gubmit clearance prohibits you from doing things like this.

I understand the sneaky premise on which these are being gathered, but aside from handing out your friends/families addresses, what is the big deal if they get yours? Is it because they will sell/give it to companies that will hit you with a lot of spam? I mean, no 'real' harm right? Just making sure I understand what the issue is here. (seriously, not being sarcastic)

No way!

So they'll collect emails from kids, use them to spam and then probably sell them

But

They won't give out the contact info of the rep from a commercial business?

Oh hell no!

You should have a problem with this.

I do recommend a letter to the principal and possibly the school board depending on the principal's response.