PR Shooting Itself in the Foot?

I'm in PR/AR so I'm allowed to poke fun at my fellow practitioners. With CTIA in town this week, I've been getting my fair share of PR pitches and vendor press releases even though my PR Guidelines are posted on the site and it says right on the main page that this blog "tracks the analysts talking about the mobile devices, content and services markets."

However this post isn't a diatribe about the PR outreach I've been experiencing. No, it's about how difficult some PR "pros" make it to obtain information about their company/clients.

I recently covered a CTIA related article about a handset manufacturer that announced some new Windows Mobile 6 handsets. Since I'm thinking about upgrading my Samsung Blackjack in the near future, I thought I would contact the company to find out additional info on availability, where to purchase, features, etc.

I emailed the manufacturer's PR agency contacts and the firm's spam filter blocked it. I received a reply that said:

If you feel the block was an error, please send a separate email to the recipient asking to add you to their "whitelist".

So I tried this and my email was blocked again so basically I need to get the info elsewhere.

How effective can a PR agency be for its clients if their spam filter blocks any inquiries? It's just so baffling....