Confession from an Email Collecting Spammer

This is one of my favorites. I don't know if it will get any better than this. And I'd better duck in case the guy comes after me again.

Long ago, I got a blogger type email. As a blogger, sometimes we get emails from blog directory websites saying you've been included in the directory, bla bla bla. This email said this:

From: blogger@teamblogs.com
Please click here to view blog entry. (The spammer provided a link for me to click on. But what do we not do with links in emails we don't know? We don't click them.)
The blog entry would have been sent directly to your e-mail, but it just wouldn't do it justice.
Seeing it in html format via your internet browser allows for a more personable touch. =)
We like to keep our bloggers happy and eager for more. (Another ick - I'm not one of 'his' bloggers.)

-Team Blogger

Ok. This is a little ploy to entice me to view a "pretty" graphic email that the spammer isn't able to send to my email. Which is another lie, as he later explains (see his confession below). Sending legitimate graphic emails is very possible using a good, legitimate, and legal emailing company, like Vertical Response, MailChimp, or Constant Contact, all good, trusted companies who enforce strict policies on how to send a legally formatted email, on behalf of their clients, to people who are expecting said email.

But this spammer wants me to click on the link he provided to view what would be his email (he explains below why he does this...which is to get me to view ads that the legitimate companies don't allow). But - say it with me - we don't click on links in emails we don't know. Why? Because I hovered over the link to see where it was going. In Gmail I can do that because it's online. Don't click, just hover. It was going to this scary place:

http://www.outhouseprices.com/email.html" target="_blank

That means you're about to go to www.outhouseprices.com. WHAT? Exactly.

This Team Blogger guy keeps track of his publicity, most likely through Google News Alerts. A Google News Alert lets you punch in a term you want to be informed about, and then it sends you email notifications about when that term was on the Internet somewhere. Whatever his method, my publishing of his bogus email came across his desk. And he emailed me. Actually, he didn't email me. He commented on an unrelated post on another blog of mine. I didn't publish the comment, because he had linked things back to his website, which is a free way for him to create links to his website and give him legitimacy. An act I did not want to allow.

Here's his comment:

"You were right, there is no teamblogger! You caught me!!! I was using a program called Maxprog, a mass email program that can send mass emails without looking like a spammer to the servers that automatically detect them. In case you don't remember what I'm talking about, remember outhouseprices.com! I made it, and I'm trying to promote it, and a nice effective-cheap way to do this is by mass emailing people who are stupid enough to put their actual email address on the internet for search engines to read. Not that I'm calling you stupid, after all, you did realize that I was actually a spammer... however, I was being truthful when I told the reader's that, "Reading it in an e-mail didn't do it justice." You see, I wanted to include advertisements in my email's... so that I can make money. When one would click on it, no email's would have been saved, and nothing bad would have happened... all that would have happened is that you would have gone to a website... this one to be exact: http://www.outhouseprices.com/email.html

It just makes it so that my readers can actually see the advertisements that g-mail, yahoo, hotmail, and all the rest blocks out. No harm, no foul. It's called java-script btw... just if you were wondering, "What is this computer gibberish he speaks of?!" I would greatly appreciate it if you would educate yourself before you give my business a bad name for all to see. It's just unethical. Sorry for the "spam" you received, I'll be sure to remove you from my list.

Thanks for the bad publicity. Much obliged. "

And he ended it with a Guilt Dart. After explaining his methods, and I always love hearing how something works, he explained that I was in the wrong to expose him. In business, it's always helpful to have a good product, right? Build it and they will come? Why the need to cheat and make people upset by tricking them into viewing your product? Which may not even be a product at all, but another trick to get you to click on advertisement links that pay him $.0035 per click? Yeah.