In February, residents of Sussex County residing in Representative District 4/Sussex County Council District 3 area began receiving mysterious one-line messages on their cellphones, and in March, they began receiving strange messages on landline telephones.
The cell messages’ origin was not immediately discernible. Recipients who opened the cryptic link included in the one-sentence message were immediately directed to a survey website soliciting their opinion of Royal Farms’ application to build a gas station/convenience store at the failing intersection of Route 24 and Angola Road. Before the survey was presented, the viewer was treated to a public relations presentation of the type associated with an annual report to shareholders publication typically issued by large corporations to shareholders at the end of a fiscal year.
This part of the website presented Royal Farms as a corporate good neighbor that has nothing but benign intentions and good deeds to its credit, along with extolling the benefits of providing excellent fried chicken (yes, not making this up) to communities underserved by the lack of this highly sought-after convenience. After plowing through a factually challenged presentation (e.g., Royal Farms is an extremely conscientious green corporation; there are no convenience stores within five miles of the intersection), viewers are invited to fill out a questionnaire concerning Royal Farms’ build application.
The survey is constructed (rigged is a better word) to guide the unsuspecting recipient into approving the Royal Farms application, and if the answers indicate opposition to the application, the survey either posts itself as indicating approval anyway, or is not registered at all. Some residents have had to retrieve the survey to verify their opposition, or could not gain access to do so.
The other surveys sent to landlines – even to at least one resident's workplace, which is probably illegal – left a message by an apparent AI-generated person calling from Selbyville, who invited the receiver in a folksy manner to call him back to discuss the Royal Farms application. A check of the caller via a phone number verification service had the expected result: There was zero information associated with that number. It is clear Royal Farms contracted with a third party, probably not in Maryland where it is headquartered, in order to provide additional denial, to purchase from Verizon and Comcast the phone numbers associated with Sussex County. The contractor then created what the U.S. military calls an information operations campaign against the opposition their source(s) advised was coalescing against another attempt to enable the property’s owner to become instantly wealthy at Sussex County's expense.
This arguably illegal operation is an excellent indication of the attitude of Royal Farms toward its potential customers and even the county in which they live: contempt. One could ask, how does this subterfuge even possibly increase goodwill toward Royal Farms? This action by Royal Farms is another good reason for Sussex County Council to turn down the application, as they did the 7-Eleven attempt in 2019.
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