In 1977, Eric and Greg Hentzel cheated ice cream chain Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor when they offered free sundaes on birthdays by making up a boy, Johnny Klomberg. In 1984, the Hentzel family received a Selective Services reminder that it was almost time for little Johnny to register for the draft. The problem was, there was no Johnny Klomberg living at that address, or anywhere else. The Hentzel boys’ dad didn't think it was right that a kids' "free ice cream" list should be turned into a Selective Service name harvesting opportunity. At the time, young men were required to register with the Selective Service within 30 days of turning 18, with failure to register punishable by a $250,000 fine or up to 5 years in jail. Selective Service didn't see anything wrong with what they were doing. Nonetheless, news of the ice cream parlor's birthday club mailing list being used to enforce registration struck a number of people as just plain wrong. After public pressure, Selective Service was forced to acknowledge that in 1983 it paid a mailing list broker $5,687 for 167,000 names of other birthday club boys who would be turning 18 that year so that it could remind them to register. Farrell’s was outraged to discover its list had been passed to the government without permission. The list broker, George Mann Associates of New Jersey, acknowledged that it had allowed Selective Service to buy the list without first checking with Farrell's. When this transaction came to light, Selective Service threw out the names it had harvested. The moral of this story is: Be careful what you sign your child up for.
