I recently got ahold of a delinquent tax list from a county in Oklahoma. I just sent out post cards and have not received any calls from land owners as of yet. I did however receive a nasty voicemail from the county treasurer claiming I have sent out misinformation by using the counties own delinquent tax list. This is my first mailing campaign and I'm not quite sure how to handle this situation. Any suggestions would be helpful.
@cmreece yikes!
What did your postcards say? Did they specifically address anything about delinquent taxes, or was it more of a neutral/general message about wanting to buy property in the area? I'm just curious what the treasurer is referring to as "misinformation" if it was just a neutral message (that's really the whole point behind sending a neutral message, because you aren't specifically calling anyone out or getting very specific about why you're sending them the mail).
And furthermore, how did they even link those postcards back to you? Direct mail marketers can get this kind of owner address information from a lot of other sources... I'm curious how they made the link.
Also, did the county make you sign anything saying that you wouldn't use the information for commercial/solicitation purposes?
Thanks for the response, I've been stressing haha. I mentioned that I noticed their property in public records potentially being delinquent on taxes. I emailed the county treasurer for the actual list and she put it together.
The misinformation she was referring to is a huge misinterpretation by the people reading the cards. People were accusing her of trying to take their property away even though they hadn't been delinquent for the required 4 years. I'm not sure where in the world people are getting this from because all I say is that I'm interested in making a cash offer to purchase their property.
The county didn't make me sign anything. Actually, the email that I requested the list even said what I was doing with the list. I'm not aware of doing anything wrong, but it has definitely caused me a lot of stress being my first campaign.
@cmreece I actually had a similar thing happen to me many years ago. The entire problem stemmed from me mentioning delinquent taxes on the postcard. This got a few people excited (and not in a good way).
As a general rule, if you’re going to call out anything specific about delinquent taxes, make sure it’s in an enclosed envelope (or just don’t mention it at all... if someone’s got delinquent taxes, they already know who they are).
The wording of my postcards is intentionally vague about this, for this very reason... but if you really want to steer clear of any issues, you can just not mention it.
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