Email Abuse

[Audrey]

My vent for today is email abuse. Over the weekend I received so much spam it was unreal. But let me "qualify" what this spam really was. It was sales messages from those who have my email address as a result of me either joining their forums or submitting articles to their directories.

Lori, here at Freelance Mom is AWESOME!!!!! She has NEVER abused her relationship with any of us.

I actually wrote 2 article directory owners this weekend and told them to remove my account and all articles written by me. As of this morning, neither has answered me.

Chris, over at ezinearticles.com does it the RIGHT way. If you want to hear from him, sign up for his newsletter. If you don't sign up for his newsletter, you'll never hear from him. It's really that simple.

The same is true for forum owners. Create a newsletter. Let me have the option of signing up.

Ok, vent over...again, Lori you are AWESOME!!!!

[Audrey]

I really was upset yesterday. That one last email put me over the edge. However, there was some good that came of it...I wrote an article and uploaded it last night. It's already created traffic, which thrills me!!! Here's the article:

Respecting The Email Addresses Given To You

Most everyone who owns a website wants to capture the email addresses of those who visit their sites. There are several ways to accomplish this “capturing”. One way is to offer a newsletter. When you offer free information on an ongoing basis, folks who are interested in the topic you are writing about will subscribe. I believe this is actually the best way to capture email addresses.

The other way to capture an email address is to require a “sign up”. This is done when you sign up with an article directory or when you sign up to take part in conversation on message boards.

This past weekend, I know of no other word but abuse to describe the amount of emails I received from site owners where “sign up” had been required. I spent a good part of the weekend deleting my accounts from both message board communities and also from article directories. The threat of “you won’t be able to submit articles here anymore”, or “you won’t be able to post anymore” actually had me laughing. My articles bring in revenue to the site owners. My posts actually stimulate conversation thus bringing in revenue to the site owner. When I unsubscribe from the site, it is lost revenue to the site owner. With hundreds of article directories and hundreds of message boards on the web, I’d much rather give away my articles and posts to those who respect my email address.

Christopher Knight (www.ezinearticles.com) should consider teaching courses on respecting member’s privacy. I only get emails from him that I have REQUESTED. Right on his site he offers opt in’s to several mailing lists he distributes. Now, why can’t other site owners do this? Again, my articles are bringing in revenue to their sites. Why offend me with spam? Why not create a newsletter and allow me the option to opt in?

If you are a site owner that captures the email addresses of those who “sign up”, you truly might want to think about the pro’s and con’s of sending out unasked for emails.

~ ~ ~ ~
Audrey Okaneko has been working at home since 1983. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or visited at http://www.scrapping-made-simple.com

[ladymel]

Hi Audrey!

I am glad to have found yet another board you are on! I love reading what you write. Writing is one talent not given to me!
I agree with you about the spam. I get really aggravated when I get spam from other WAHM. I don't know them, they have just picked my email up from one place or another, and then I begin receiving emails about their sales and opportunities.

[Audrey]

Hi Melissa,

I'm fairly vocal about my dislike of spam. I will share one of the funniest stories about spam.

This happened about 5 years ago. A guy wrote me, PRETENDING to be a friend. He said "how's your husband?" and "how are the kids?". He said "it's been so long since we last spoke." He truly acted like he was a "friend". So I decided to have some fun. His email had gone on to say that he was earning a 6 figure income etc and he'd love to have me join him.

Now comes the fun. I wrote him back and said "oh Jack I'm so happy to hear from you and so happy to hear you're doing so well. Unfortunately I am doing as well as you and I sure could use your help. You see my husband lost his job a few months back and they are going to forclose on our house and one of the kids just can't seem to get healthy and the doctor bills are mounting. Oh Jack, I'm so glad you wrote, I really could use your financial help".

Of course he never wrote me back. Ahh...but it gets better. About 4 months later, I got more spam...this time from a gal who bragged that Jack was her mentor and upline. Ok, time for some fun again. I forwarded her the email from 4 months earlier and asked why she thought Jack never answered me and wasn't willing to help. Do you know I never heard from her again either?

Yea, I really dislike spam.

[ladymel]

LOL! Audrey I wish we lived closer to each other. I would love to meet you! You keep me entertained online, I can only imagine if I were to meet you in person.

[Lori]

:coffee: I hate spam too.

Thanks for the kudos Audrey -- I appreciate it. Sometimes I even wonder if sending the once a month newsletter is really worth it. LOL.

But I only get a handful of unsubscribes each time so I guess people like it.

What I don't get is why they bother spamming. I have yet to meet ANYONE who responds positively to spam -- much less buy anything.

What about all this weird spam lately... the stock market stuff. Anyone else getting bombarded with that?

[GemStone]

A friend of mine is getting bombarded with the stock market stuff and the worst thing is they are now using his email address (or a variant of it) to send out the spam. I think the way they do it, is if they get success sending to an email address they loop through and in time use those to generate the spam from.

The problem for my friend is that when he sends out emails from his address (which he says he's had for nearly 10 years!) most of his personal email doesn't get through to the recipient.

He's forwarded some of the stock market emails and I can't believe anyone would fall for it.

[Audrey]

Gem,

Unfortunately folks do fall for the lies and hype. I've read a few articles about really high profile, intelligent corporate employees falling for some of the bank and ebay scams. The scammers are more and more convincing in their hype.

I continually support efforts to enforce stricter punishments to those found guilty of computer crimes.

Online, while I'm only one person I continue to write about and post in communities with questions that I hope will lead others to not fall for hype.

Another of my pet peeves are the ads that say "no selling" when the ad is about becoming a distributor for a direct sales company. If I can continue to help folks not get scammed, one person at a time, then I feel great about what I'm doing.