Long lost friend or creepy psycho?

September 12, 2007 5:10 PM

A customer just placed an order at my website. It's looking like this is a friend I went to school with in the early 90's but lost touch over 10 years ago. I would like to reconnect with him. How do I do that without violating his privacy and/or being creepy?

Today, I was browsing through our website's backend and saw his last name. The last name is fairly unique which was enough for me to think "could this be who I think it is" and so I looked closer at the order details. Turns out, it is my old friend. Same first name, same city & state. My question is, I lost touch with this person back in 1994, but would absolutely love to reconnect. Is it inappropriate for me to contact this person via the business? Is it unethical? This person was such a good friend to me and I'm almost sure it wouldn't be a big deal, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. I don't want to give the company a bad name or make him feel like his privacy was violated. I have been looking for him for years with no solid leads until now.

The business is small (less than 10 employees) so it's not like I work at a big corporation and I'm trolling through reams of private customer data looking for people I might now. I'm co-owner of the company, I juggle different hats so it's not unusual for me to look at some orders in detail, it's just part of the day to day running of the business.

The flip side of this is that in our alumni community, it's not an unknown that I run this company. He wouldn't exactly need deft googling skills to make the connection between my name and the business so it's entirely possible that it's intentional, but I could be completely wrong.

So mefites, I ask ... how to proceed? How would you feel if you were in his position and you got an email from a company, unrelated to your order, from someone you used to know?

posted by SoulOnIce to Human Relations (22 answers total)

Why not just send a "confirmation email" or "thanks for your order" email with your full name in the signature and let him proceed from there? (assuming your name is unique)
posted by artifarce at 5:18 PM on September 12, 2007

Can't you just say you were preparing his order?
posted by fogster at 5:19 PM on September 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

"Hey there! I'm the co-owner of the company you just placed an order with! Small world, huh?"
posted by Jairus at 5:19 PM on September 12, 2007

Tough one. I might feel creeped out if someone were to contact me that way.

Now that you know your firiend is alive and well, why not look for him on Facebook, Freindster or some other social networking site? If you find him there, make contact there.
posted by maudlin at 5:20 PM on September 12, 2007

I would be freaked out. It would seem to me that the company was not scrupulous about respecting my privacy if people were using my order information to contact me on non-business matters.
posted by winna at 5:24 PM on September 12, 2007

It's weird that people think that ecommerce sites are completely staffed by automated robots. At some point a human has to pick pack and ship your order.

If you were running a shop, and he walked in the door, you'd say "hi", right? Why so furtive just because we're online?
posted by Leon at 5:27 PM on September 12, 2007

Just add a note to his order confirmation saying something to the effect of "Hey, is this so-and-so from School Name? Remember me?". Tell him you were the one processing the order and you recognized the name. I wouldn't consider that creepy, especially if we were good friends back in the day.
posted by wsp at 5:32 PM on September 12, 2007

Unless your store sells somewhat "personal" items, I wouldn't find it creepy at all.
posted by dcjd at 5:39 PM on September 12, 2007

I'd be delighted to get a message from a friend like this! Unless you sell strap-on dildos or something....
posted by Charlie Lesoine at 5:46 PM on September 12, 2007 [4 favorites]

Can you google him and find him some other way? Then you can send him a note saying "hope this isn't too forward, but I googled you and thought I'd say hi."

Then, when you are catching up, you can tell him about the order catching your eye, but you can explain you didn't want to creep him out. If his contact info is google-able, you're in the clear.

(I've been googled and contacted by people from days before the flood, and I've done the same to others, and so far no one's been creeped out.)
posted by ambrosia at 5:49 PM on September 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

This happened to me so I'll n-up on the vote for going for a small note. I sent in a product to be returned and an old friend contacted me: he's the customer service manager at the company. I was a lot happier to be back in touch with an old friend, than creeped out. And, while the friend who contacted me, was a friend, he was not a *best* friend.
posted by zpousman at 5:49 PM on September 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

It's weird that people think that ecommerce sites are completely staffed by automated robots. At some point a human has to pick pack and ship your order.

It probably stems from some (unconscious) assumptions about what kinds of items are sold online, or why people are buying that way. And to some extent, whether or not it's creepy to say hi to your friend is also dependent on that. You didn't say it was any kind of adult store, so it's probably not that big a deal.
posted by dilettante at 5:57 PM on September 12, 2007

I would be happy. Not creeped out at all.
posted by milarepa at 6:16 PM on September 12, 2007

I say go for it. It's a company of 10, not a multi-branch office. I'd say it's just like walking into a family owned business, and surprise it's Person X! Not creepy at all.
posted by Meagan at 6:21 PM on September 12, 2007

Best answer: Yep, drop a note... you never know what may happen. "Hey, your order was in my queue today and I'm from 'City, State' and knew a 'Firstname Lastname' and maybe it's *you*."

What to expect... mixed results.

I just checked again and a Google of my 'Firstname Lastname' pretty much nails me. And I've had a random friend from 20+ years ago send an "OMG is that you" email just within the last couple of months. I enjoy it, a random email from a long lost (pre-internet days) friend is cool.
posted by zengargoyle at 6:22 PM on September 12, 2007

I say send a note; I would be flattered to be contacted by the owner of a company and glad to know an old friend was doing well. I run into old high school friends and acquaintances all the time at work and no one seems creeped out. And even if you are selling sex toys or something similar, you are selling them and he is buying them, so still no cause for embarassment in my book.
posted by TedW at 6:27 PM on September 12, 2007

Is this a vote? Because I vote send it.

One of two things will happen:

a) your friend will be as thrilled to hear from you as you are to see their name and your friendship will resume.
b) your friend will be creeped out, and will be just as much out of your life as they are now.

It's a can't lose situation.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:34 PM on September 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'd be delighted to get a message from a friend like this! Unless you sell strap-on dildos or something....

That's what I was going to say. As long as what you sell isn't something that a reasonable person would be embarrassed for an acquaintance to know, then yes, contact him.

Think back to the pre-Web days: if you ordered something from a mom-and-pop mail order store, and it turned out that you KNEW mom or pop, you would surely expect them to acknowledge you, right? Would it be weird for mom or pop to send you a note saying, "Hey, I saw your name among our orders of home-made fudge, so great to hear from you"? No, it would be entirely appropriate.

I understand your reluctance --- we live in privacy-obsessed times when there's a big fear factor in online transactions. But I think the contact you are proposing is entirely reasonable and friendly, and not at all strange.
posted by jayder at 6:44 PM on September 12, 2007

Response by poster: Thanks for the responses. First, it's not an adult store, we sell boring crap for everyday businesses. Nothing special.

I think I will definitely contact him. I'm thinking about maybe sending him an electronic gift certificate from our store with a note. Nothing outrageous so that if on the off chance it isn't him, then at least this guy got a free gift certificate.
posted by SoulOnIce at 7:13 PM on September 12, 2007

Hell, even if you sell something embarrassing: You know that that person buys an embarrassing thing, but that person knows that you're in the BUSINESS of the embarrassing thing. He's still ahead of the game.

I like the gift certificate idea.
posted by mendel at 10:11 PM on September 12, 2007 [2 favorites]

This is just precisely as creepy as walking into a specific bookstore to buy a specific book and discovering the owner of the store, the person you were buying the book from, is an old friend.

The internet makes us too privacy-conscious. Don't worry, what you're doing isn't weird even in the slightest.
posted by koeselitz at 6:12 AM on September 13, 2007

If you do it, please update if you can, I would like to know how it turns out.
posted by Danila at 12:31 PM on September 13, 2007