Stupid stupid stupid spam

[Cliptin]

I received this little piece of spam tonight:

Dear Sir/Madam,

My name is Peter Severa, I am Business Development Director
at E-mailPromo Company. Your name was at a business-related
website. Do I understand correctly that your activity is
related to business? May I know, what industry are you in,
specifically?

If you may be interested in new customers, our company will
be glad to assist you with promotion of your business. We offer
databases of email addresses for direct email advertising,
we deliver mailing campaigns, offer bulk-email web hosting
for advertising projects. Also, we can design an attractive
html message and a supporting website.

Today, our database includes over 50 million valid and original
verified e-mail addresses. It is constantly being updated with
addresses from all over the world. We can also create
customized databases targeted at your request.

By the way, if you would like us to remove you from our
database, please send a message to info@e-mailpromo.net with
"Remove" in the Subject line.

Usually, mailing of 1 million addresses allows to brings
1000-5000 new visitors interested in your offer to your site.


Your advertising campaign will be fully legal. It will
include a remove instruction, thus it will be in compliance
with the new e-mail bill section 301. Under Bill S. 1618
TITLE III passed by the 105th US Congress.


We use our own mailing software which can be ideally adjusted
for every customer. We have a high-bandwidth channel and a high
power server.

The constant demand for our service allows us to keep low
prices.


Please see all details, FAQ about our service, and references
of our customers at:

http://www.e-mailpromo.net


If you have any questions or a request, please do _not_ reply me
just with a Reply button.

I will be happy to answer every your question.


Thank you,

Peter Severa
Business Development Director
E-mailPromo Company
www.e-mailpromo.net

***********************************************
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This wouldn't have been so bad if it had arrived alone.

But nooooooo. I received 40 more messages that appear to be replies to the list. They sure aren't trying very hard to make friends.

 

[iGary]

I received this little piece of spam tonight:

Dear Sir/Madam,

My name is Peter Severa...

I get shedloads of spam just like this EACH DAY. On some days, it may top over 200 such messages. Earlier this year I had to delete several THOUSAND crap E-mail messages in one sitting after not logging in for over a week -- during a week when the spammers decided to see how much shite they could generate.

My (not so) favourite E-Mail incident occurred back in 2000, when this fncking idiot spammer from Denmark just happened to accidentally send out his spam message WITH EVERYONE'S E-mail address in the TO: field -- about 20000 ~ 25000 addresses! The message I received was about 10 MEGA Bytes! Then I started getting RE: messages from furious recipients that stupidly CC: everyone else! At that point, I got smart and put a 200 KB message size limit on my mail server account.

 

[Tea]

Sometimes I wonder why these messages don't start a self-sustaining chain reaction, leading to complete core meltdown - er, I mean server gridlock. Seriously! There are so many morons around (you should see some of the moronic things I meet at work - no, you probably see enough of your own) that I have never quite worked out why these things, once started, don't just go on forever.I guess it's because, even though there are millions upon millions of morons, the net effect of each generation of "why did you send me that message" messages is a slight reduction - possibly because some of them haven't got it together to hit the REPLY TO button reliably yet.

 

[Buck]

They should all be flogged and beaten!

 

[jtr1962]

The biggest joke of all with most spam is the "Click here to unsubscribe" link. Either the link is broken, or if you hit it your e-mail address gets put on a list of "good" addresses that are then sold to other spammers, and you end up with 10X the crap coming in. I once had a webtv address that somehow got on a bunch of spammer's lists, and I was getting upwards of 5 junk mails a day. I got so disgusted that I deleted the account and started a new one, which remained clean.

I don't just blame the spammers, even though they are the primary culprits. I also blame the small percentage of idiots that actually respond to this stuff. If spam didn't bring in any money, the practice would end in short order. I'm guessing(although I could be wrong) that most of the people who respond to spam are the same clueless senior citizens that religiously read and reply to all their junk mail. These people just haven't got a clue that there is no such thing as a free prize. The price you pay for accepting something that sounds too good to be true is being put on endless mailing lists.

I've already said it before but it bears repeating-the sooner spam is outlawed the better. That won't stop it, but it will give us the tools to put the worst culprits behing bars, which is where they belong.

On a related note, companies should only be allowed to sell your address or telemarket you if you expressly give them written permission. Now you're automatically opted in unless you return those stupid replay cards. The reverse should be true-you should be automatically opted out unless you request otherwise. I hate all advertising, but some forms(spam, junk mail, telemarketing, TV ads) are more obnoxious than others.

 

[blakerwry]

I hate all advertising, but some forms(spam, junk mail, telemarketing, TV ads) are more obnoxious than others.

ehhehe... that reminds me of a segment on TIVO I was listening to on NPR.. They were interviewing a head of a TV network and he was saying that TIVO was bad because it allows people to fast forward through commercials. And to him, that was undermining the network and it's sponsors.


On another note, Kansas just started a "no call" list for telephone solicitors. If you haven't done business with a company (or 36 months has passed since doing business with a company) they are not allowed to call you. If you are called, you can get the company's name and report them. They will be fined.

http://www.state.ks.us/public/ksag/contents/consumer/nocall/no-call.htm

 

[jtr1962]

On another note, Kansas just started a "no call" list for telephone solicitors. If you haven't done business with a company (or 36 months has passed since doing business with a company) they are not allowed to call you. If you are called, you can get the company's name and report them. They will be fined.

New York started this over a year ago, but as with the Kansas law, there are too many loopholes. For example, charities and political parties are exempt, as are any companies that you did business with in the previous year. The Direct Marketing Association fought the law all the way. I guess they haven't got a clue that telemarketing has to be the single dumbest thing ever done in the world of advertising. You come home from work and phones ringing all day, and suddenly you think you're back at work when the telemarketing calls start coming in. :x The officials were surprised by the flood of people registering for the do not call list even though I wasn't. I just wish the law had no exemptions. Do not call should mean exactly that. The sooner this annoying practice is completely done away with the better.

They were interviewing a head of a TV network and he was saying that TIVO was bad because it allows people to fast forward through commercials.

This just shows how utterly out of touch with reality the networks are. Do they really think anybody actually watches their commercials, or if they do that they actually make purchasing decisions based on them? They've tried every trick in the book-more frequent commercial breaks, louder commercials, the same commercial shown twice in a row, etc. Obviously nothing is working because people don't appreciate having their TV program interrupted to tell them about something they already know about. What exactly is the point of AOL, Coke, Pepsi, McDonalds, Burger King, and many other commercials? People know these things exist and either buy them or not. Car commercials are even sillier. They usually make a big fuss over a plain or even ugly looking vehicle, show it being driven recklessly, and then show the lowest possible sticker price(which includes no options). Do they really think someone decides to buy an item costing tens of thousands of dollars based on a silly 30-second commercial? Or that the commercial even makes them consider it slightly more? I highly doubt it. Advertisers should stick to infomercials, flyers, and word of mouth. These all seem to work the best and are the least intrusive.

 

[blakerwry]

Do you get sucked into infomercials as much as I do?

I don't actually buy stuff from TV (QVC, home shopping network, infomercial or otherwise).. but sometimes I find myself watching an hour long infomercial - this usually occurs only at the late late hours of the early morning - and thinking to myself that these products are actually worth the $19.95... oh, and don't forget I get the free gift with that....

 

[blakerwry]

And I should mention that I do think alot of peoples' purchasing decisions are directly influenced by radio and TV ads.

I think some of us - including myself - have grown to cynical to believe that advertisements might be truthful, so we scavange for reviews and roundups in an attempt to get an unbiased opinion of a product and its competition before we decide to buy.



what is it with those car commercials anyway?

 

[Mercutio]

Since I got a TV I've watched a couple of infomercials on Telemundo. Fun with insomnia. Actually commercials in general on the Spanish channels are amusing.

 

[blakerwry]

da da da da da Daisy Fuentas.

blah blah blah blah blah Bush.


yes, you can tell I watch the spanish channels occasionally. I would really like a French channel too. Do they have French channel?

 

[jtr1962]

Do you get sucked into infomercials as much as I do?

Not really, but occasionally when I just feel like watching TV and there's nothing worth watching, and I'm too lazy to look in my tape collection I might watch an infomercial or two. At least infomercials go in depth about whatever it is they're selling. You just can't do that in a 30-second ad. Since I have a one track mind, meaning I'll focus obsessively on one task for hours or even days, I would rather either be watching a continuous commercial or a continuous program. Watching TV with ads is like reading a book and being interrupted every 7 or 8 minutes. I find it very annoying to say the least.

 

[jtr1962]

yes, you can tell I watch the spanish channels occasionally. I would really like a French channel too. Do they have French channel?

Funny, I watch the Chinese channels quite a bit. I don't understand a word they're saying, but sometimes the subject matter seems interesting. I even listen to Chinese pop music sometimes, although as of late it's gotten almost as bad as American pop music. In fact, they seem to be imitating American pop music which I find rather disconcerting. The Koreans are also. It's almost laughable listening to Korean pop singers doing rap.

 

[Cliptin]

yes, you can tell I watch the spanish channels occasionally. I would really like a French channel too. Do they have French channel?

Funny, I watch the Chinese channels quite a bit. I don't understand a word they're saying, but sometimes the subject matter seems interesting. I even listen to Chinese pop music sometimes, although as of late it's gotten almost as bad as American pop music. In fact, they seem to be imitating American pop music which I find rather disconcerting. The Koreans are also. It's almost laughable listening to Korean pop singers doing rap.

The upside is I was able to successfully unsubscribe from the list.

Before I unsubscribed I was getting messages of automated rejections of someone elses automated rejections of other's out-of-office-for-vacation messages. I could see the net cascading before my eyes.

 

[SteveC]

The FTC wants to set up a national do not call list. NJ is one of the states that currently doesn't have one, so I'm looking foward to this.

 

[blakerwry]

I hadn't even heard of such a thing until a couple months ago... It is a great idea.

 

[SteveC]

Telemarketers are suing to try to stop the FTC from making the national do not call list. Somehow, I knew they wouldn't agree to it without a fight.

 

[Groltz]

.

I hope none of you guys have run afoul of this hellish slimeware:

http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,57467,00.htm

.

 

[jtr1962]

Telemarketers are suing to try to stop the FTC from making the national do not call list. Somehow, I knew they wouldn't agree to it without a fight.

My heart bleeds for them. Seriously, some of their claims are ludicrous:

"In the suit, the DMA and four telemarketing firms said the FTC's effort would violate free-speech laws and discriminate against an industry that provides millions of jobs."

First of all, I doubt that the industry provides millions of jobs. Given that neither I nor anyone I know have ever bought a single thing via telemarketing, I just don't see how most of them even stay in business. I personally feel most telemarketing companies are a front for something else.

Second, there is no "free-speech" issue here. Free speech does not guarantee an audience. Nobody is stopping the telemarketers from launching their tirade into an unconnected phone should they wish to. Besides, advertising does not necessarily fall under the category of free-speech, and neither do strip clubs, which is another business that has used the free-speech argument in NYC to fight being shut down or rezoned. Free speech does not include the right to yell "bomb" at an airport, and when safety or health are compromised, the right to free speech ends.

It is a fact that nearly everybody hates telemarketing with a passion. It causes harm by interrupting activities for no valid reason. It drives up people's blood pressure. Furthermore, there is no valid reason to use it. There are many other less intrusive avenues open-mail, newpaper and magazine ads, even billboards. Telemarketing, along with other intrusive forms of advertising like pop-ups, spam, and TV ads should be banned by law. I still don't know why the proposed federal law, like many of the state laws, exempts political and charitable groups. These are two of the most annoying types of callers. Using the phone as an advertising instrument was the single stupidest thing ever done in the advertising world.

 

[Cliptin]

It is a fact that nearly everybody hates telemarketing with a passion. It causes harm by interrupting activities for no valid reason. It drives up people's blood pressure. Furthermore, there is no valid reason to use it.

If it were not economically effective they would stop. They do studies all the time to determine which combination of methods works best and in what volume. Maybe the telemarketers should start selling blood pressure medication.

 

[blakerwry]

would you rather have door to door salesmen? isn't that the predecessor to telemarketting?

 

[jtr1962]

would you rather have door to door salesmen? isn't that the predecessor to telemarketting?

How about neither? Seriously, if I want to buy something, I don't need to be pressured. Add to this the fact that the most annoying ads are for irrelevant, useless products(which is probably why they feel the need to push them so hard). If they would actually start selling just things people could actually use, word of mouth might generate a lot of sales. Some of the things they're selling are equivalent to selling furnaces in hell. What possible use is a piece of junk like the X10 Web Cam, for example? Maybe people buy them just to stop the pop-ups?

Some common telemarketing calls that I've received were for chimney cleaning(they actually still do this nowadays??), real estate asking if we want to sell the house(we certainly wouldn't do it through a real estate agency if we were), contests, get rich quick schemes, free credit reports, surveys, charitable contributions, and political calls. All very, very irrelevant and annoying. Now if someone called about discount computer or electronics parts I might be slightly interested, but all these calls are for things I wouldn't need in a million years.

 

[timwhit]

The do not call lists don't stop charitable/non-profit calls, which can be just as annoying as the for-profit calls.

But, I don't get any of these calls because I don't even have a regular phone, just a cell phone. Now if I start getting these calls on my cell phone then I will really be pissed.

 

[jtr1962]

If it were not economically effective they would stop. They do studies all the time to determine which combination of methods works best and in what volume. Maybe the telemarketers should start selling blood pressure medication.

Well, the fines for unwanted calls are about to make it a heck of a lot less economically viable. :mrgrn: I like to think they do the types of studies you mentioned, but surveys show a universal dislike of telemarketing. Answering the phone requires you to drop what you're doing, and when you find out your routine was interrupted for a stupid sales call your blood starts to boil, especially if it happens six or seven times while you're eating dinner. About the only people who might like telemarketing calls are retirees with nobody else to talk to. Everyone else hates them with a passion. I wouldn't repeat on a public forum the language I've used a couple of times that I've gotten the same call from the same person a few nights in a row. Reminds me of the stupid spammers who somehow think sending you the same junk mail 20 times in one day is going to be more effective than once.

I think the DMA should take a clue. If this many people sign on to these do not call lists it evidently means telemarketing is neither effective nor a good idea. I maintain that the best ads are the least intrusive. Why else are pop-ups and loud TV commercials detested almost as much as telemarketing? It seems the advertising industry thinks that being loud, obnoxious, and intrusive has the best results. Nothing could be further from the truth. Also, the sheer number of ads in all forms is overwhelming. Since using ad blockers my Internet surfing experience has been greatly enhanced. I also saved the ad servers the bother of loading ads for products I wouldn't have bought anyhow.

 

[Handruin]

I had a funny telemarketing call the other day. This girl calls me up and informs me that they are having a special on chimney cleaning. She asked when the last time mine was cleaned, and I said never...my apartment doesn't have one.

Click.


I also got even one time when some guy called about a credit card offer, or was it lowering my student loans bull#$@!. I was in a bad mood that day so I let this guy give me his speech (since I couldn't get a word in anyway). As I let the frustration build to unload on this guy, I let him talk for another 45 to 60 seconds.

When he was finished and asked for me to confirm the acceptance of sending me something I didn't even want, I politely asked him to repeat it all because I wasn't paying attention.

This pissed him off something fierce because he sternly told me to pay attention this time...I couldn't believe it. Hehe, so once again he went through his routine and I did the same thing again...it felt so good and I didn't even have to be vulgar.


If you can't stop um, have fun with them...

 

[blakerwry]

i dont answer the phone anymore unless I'm expecting a call... infact I've turned off the ringer completely.

I have 2 phones 1) a cordless for convenience and 2) a corded see through phone that has a mechanical ringer and a light that flashes when it should be ringing... mainly for backup purposes (cant find the cordless or the power is out)

I have the ringer off on both phones, so the only notice i get for a phone call is the little flashing light inside my phone... sometimes i miss calls... but i don't mind.

Sometimes I'm expecting a call.. so I turn on the ringer of the phone that has a mechanical bell... to make this less anoying I have used dampenning material around the outside of the bell so the typical "ring" is replaced by a more clickish, less obtrusive sound.

 

[Tannin]

Let's just think about that "provides thousands of jobs" claim for a moment, shall we?

Now we can stipulate a few obvious facts, and reason from there.

(i) Telemarketers are private enterprises. Not being AOL, they don't do things that don't make them a profit, at least not for longer than it takes to go bankrupt. (Charitable organisations that telemarket are best regarded as psudo-corporations in this context, and treated just like the firms they ape.) (In fact, the calls generally are from private commercial firms: call centres just contract to raise money for a charity in the same way that they contract to sell insurance or do phonme support for Compaq.)

(ii) From this, we can reason that telemarking sells enough product to pay the wages for those "thousands of jobs".

(iii) And yet, we have no evidence at all to suggest that these products could not be distributed through orthodox means instead - i.e., sold in shops like everything else. In fact, we can reason that, for any given telemarketing product, only one of two propositions must hold true: (a) that the product is much the same as other products which are sold through normal chanels (in which case the telemarketing serves no usefuul purpose save to divert sales (and thus jobs) from the broader retail sector), or (b), that the products sold by telemarketing are items which are unable to compete in the broader marketplace - i.e., they are inferior, shoddy, or too high-priced. In this second case (which my observation suggests is more usually the true state of affairs) we can thus conclude that telemarketing is actively anti-social: not only does it decrease the net worth of the nation boy substituting inferior goods for superior ones, but it also reduces the wealth of the nation by diverting the useful economic resource that constitutes the time of productive citizens.

In short, there are good economic argumemts against it, and no economic argument whatever in its favour.

(Thoughts I had this morning after being called away from a useful and money-making activity in order to talk to a telemarketer.)

 

[Tea]

You're zlipping, Tannin. This bloke here zaid it much better.

 

[SteveC]

I had a funny telemarketing call the other day. This girl calls me up and informs me that they are having a special on chimney cleaning. She asked when the last time mine was cleaned, and I said never...my apartment doesn't have one.

Chimney cleaners like calling me up as well. I don't have one, either. The only reason I bother to answer my phone anymore is so I don't miss those really important calls that you absolutely can't miss (I have one of those just this Monday), otherwise I'd let my answering machine pick up everything.

 

[Mercutio]

If you're a dialup type, just don't ever disconnect from the internet, and don't bother to plug in a phone (I have one plugged in. I don't know what it sounds like when it rings).

I have a cell phone for "important calls I can't miss", and telemarketers don't ever call my cell number.

 

[jtr1962]

You're zlipping, Tannin. This bloke here zaid it much better.

There were a couple of gems in that article:

"Rather than suing to protect their right to target an unwilling population, DMA members might examine why their chosen form of marketing is so ineffective in the first place and address the relevant problems."

"Spam email, by its definition, tends to be over-sent, advertise services which are widely seen as untrustworthy, of marginal legality (or flat-out illegal) and offer no assurances whatsoever that the product or service being advertised will perform as stated. Combine this with the well-known fact that even so-called "remove" buttons often result from a consumer being removed from one list and placed on another with guaranteed-functional emails (and re-sold) and you've got a flawed advertising model from the start."

And my favorite:

"The idea that a company's right to ask me to switch telephone carriers, order a set of new magazines, or invest in Nigerian banking outweighs a customer's right to escape such haranguing if they so desire is flatly ridiculous."

The person hit the nail on the head here. You only need to resort to such heavy-handed sales methods like spam, pop-ups, and telemarketing if you're either selling something illegal or substandard. For everything else, the normal methods work well. Flyers and catalogs are the best, in my opinion. Totally unobstrusive and usually packed with information. Some of them are so good I even keep them handy for quick reference.

I generally try to be on the Internet from 6PM to 9PM, besides other times. This seems to block most telemarketing calls. If I lived alone I would get phone service that just allows outgoing calls. That would solve the problem completely.