If you have been a long time follower of LeadCritic you know that we cover a handful of dramatic news events within the lead generation space ranging from rumors to murder cases. It seems as though they have been increasing over time too. Well, today news will be another piece to be  added to the collection.

A website popped up today and found itself being emailed around the industry. The site makes some interesting claims against University of Phoenix’s Vice President of Digital Media & Marketing Paul Rhyu. The site titled ‘The Rhyu Agenda” takes about 20 paragraphs to describe an agenda that involves scaring UoP competitors away from using lead aggregator’s that call verify leads or provide warm transfers. This is only after cutting off all sources that performed any type of call verification on leads sent to University of Phoenix.

Excerpt:

“Once Rhyu was at UOP, he tried to sabotage the industry by cutting off all call centers that were competitors and hoping that when the #1 player in the market stopped buying leads the industry would flounder. This miscalculation allowed other schools to jump in and fill the gap, buying those leads.

In response, Paul Rhyu switched tactics and began preaching a different message disparaging the very process he formerly championed. He is now on a campaign to eliminate both lead aggregators and call verification centers. Rhyu’s motive is to eliminate competition, tirelessly attending trade shows, going to conferences and calling other schools with one clear message, “we must eliminate the evil lead generators and the evil call centers.”

While I have never had any first hand communication with Paul Rhyu or anyone from University of Phoenix, I have heard Paul speak at a number of conferences. At the TARGUSinfo Lead Scoring Summit in New Orleans this last year he stood up mid way through a session and went on a rant about how call center leads were the source of most of the lead quality issues in the industry. What was strange and what caught most people of guard was that the session had nothing to do with call centers or call center leads. I had the impression, and others I spoke to that day had the same impression that it he had a clear plan to get up on a soap box and talk about banning together to stop the growth of call center leads. While I have no idea whether there is the intent the author of the website is referring too, the story does coincide with some of the opinions he expressed in public.

Those of you in the EDU space. What do you think?

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