I will never sell or rent your email address ....

[Stay At Home Mum]

Does anyone actually believe this to be true? it seems that lately whenever I sign up to an optin list offering a report or a freebie of some kind that this line

'I promise to never sell, give away or rent your address to anyone'

doesn't seem to be true. Within about an hour of signing up I get my 'freebie' and then low and behold all of a sudden I get numerous emails from people who I never even signed up to. Most of them being for acai berry, ebay garbage, and several others that i cant remember right now.

The funny thing is that most times now as soon as I get the product on offer I will go and unsubscirbe because if this very reason - but yet I still get all these other spammy emails. Any one else encountered this?

[Steven Wagenheim]

Originally Posted by Stay At Home Mum

Does anyone actually believe this to be true? it seems that lately whenever I sign up to an optin list offering a report or a freebie of some kind that this line

'I promise to never sell, give away or rent your address to anyone'

doesn't seem to be true. Within about an hour of signing up I get my 'freebie' and then low and behold all of a sudden I get numerous emails from people who I never even signed up to. Most of them being for acai berry, ebay garbage, and several others that i cant remember right now.

The funny thing is that most times now as soon as I get the product on offer I will go and unsubscirbe because if this very reason - but yet I still get all these other spammy emails. Any one else encountered this?

Liz, this may or may not have anything to do with the list you signed up
with.

Truth is, there are spammers out there that, once you establish an
Internet presence, will find you.

I know I am on no lists other than respectable marketers and I still get
spam.

It just goes with the territory.

[Clayton Jolin]

Actually, the credibility of the guy giving away something comes into play at this time! I don't giveaway my email to any other freebie.

The bombardments of SPAM comes when you fill in offers like Free-iPhone and all which are co-reg ones.

I always wonder how the co-reg emailers profit when all their emails end up in the spam folder?

Anyhow, there must be something I'm missing

Regards.
CJ

[Rob Anderson]

hi liz.
i have found that 50% of my spam comes in via my own website.

about 6 weeks ago their server"crashed" for the weekend, but i am convinced that a spammer was using software to pinch all the email addresses at that server. they deny it. but now i recieve spam from myself. all i can do is hope that their software (the spammers) only spams each website with their own email. i would be a little peeved if my email address is being used to spam other people.

generally i have found that the normal auto responder type person really would not share your email address. remember that they have worked fairly hard to get your details in the first place.
still it would be nice if we had no spam at all.

[anth.elias]

Yes, it all comes down to creditably- some you can trust most you can't.

Always use a toss away email address hot mail yahoo what ever, in fact create one just for this purpose, so if your email address does get passed around hot mail will take care of the spammers for you.

I like hot mail it does a real good job with the spammers and gmail is also great.

[Loren Woirhaye]

One thing you should do is NOT RESPOND to email solicitations
that are clearly spam. When you do it tells the spammer there
is somebody home so they send you more spam.

While this is not true in every case and sometimes it's just some
hapless MLM person who added you to their list because they
"thought" you might be interested (happens a lot to me), often
if you run Craigslist ads or whatever, answering email inquiries
which are not specific will usually get you tagged as a a deliverable
recipient for scam-spam.

So juts delete it. Don't answer it or the problem will get worse.

[lharding]

We run that line on our sites and certainly stick to it. But there are probably people out there that don't. In fact we double opt-in, so even if we get an email, if the person doesn't confirm with the SINGLE email we send them we delete them from our list. I'd rather have a short list than be told I'm spamming.

It's a shame that people do lie as it becomes more difficult for people starting in this business to get off the ground.

Cheers, Lee

[Dan C. Rinnert]

Originally Posted by Stay At Home Mum

doesn't seem to be true. Within about an hour of signing up I get my 'freebie' and then low and behold all of a sudden I get numerous emails from people who I never even signed up to. Most of them being for acai berry, ebay garbage, and several others that i cant remember right now.

Are those offers related to what you signed up for? If they're not, they may be entirely coincidental. As others have mentioned, spammers will get you. They even do dictionary attacks where they'll send to any word that might be in the dictionary as well as common names.

Some people may be lying about not selling or giving away your eMail address, but, if that's the case, they're most likely to sell it to marketers selling comparable products. If they were to sell eMail addresses to all comers, those would likely be sold at bulk pricing since they would not be targeted. In such cases, they would likely sell a list and not sell names as they come in. That wouldn't make a lot of sense. Spammers would want to buy lists, not pay a penny or a fraction of a penny for individual eMails as they come in.

Spammers generally send in bulk too, using either spam-friendly servers or hopping around. Sending out individual eMails just doesn't fit with most spam operations.

It could be the case, as others have mentioned, that it is through co-registration offers, where you're adding yourself to multiple lists when you sign up for certain "freebies." But, generally, those don't have the disclaimer that they won't sell your eMail address; it's usually in the fine print somewhere that they do or that they "share" it with their partners. But, if you're signing up for spammy offers, you can't not expect to receive spammer eMails. From what you've described, though, that doesn't sound like that's the case. Acai berry, eBay money-making schemes, etc. fall into the range of normal spam. I get messages like that on eMail addresses I haven't used to sign up for anything.

So, it's probably entirely coincidental. And, really, all it takes is for your eMail address to be "leaked" once, and then it's going to wind up in the hands of just about every spammer you can imagine.

[Frank Ayres]

Originally Posted by Stay At Home Mum

Does anyone actually believe this to be true? it seems that lately whenever I sign up to an optin list offering a report or a freebie of some kind that this line

'I promise to never sell, give away or rent your address to anyone'

doesn't seem to be true. Within about an hour of signing up I get my 'freebie' and then low and behold all of a sudden I get numerous emails from people who I never even signed up to. Most of them being for acai berry, ebay garbage, and several others that i cant remember right now.

The funny thing is that most times now as soon as I get the product on offer I will go and unsubscirbe because if this very reason - but yet I still get all these other spammy emails. Any one else encountered this?

I think that is a very unfair generalisation.

I have it on mine and i have never given any email addresses to anyone.

Also i find your sencond point very annoying that you sign up for a freebie and then unsubscribe as soon as you get the gift, this isnt very fair on the person offering you the gift in exchange for joinning their list, if you are not willing to give their list a try then you shouldnt sign up for their gift!

[Scott Ames]

I've gotten hate mail from people saying something like " Ever since I signed up for your list I've been getting spam. You sold my email and I hate you. Get me off of your list now "

The think is I never did sell, rent, or do anything with the list. It was purely coincidental that they started getting spam about the same time as signing up for my list. I'll never convince them of that though. They "know" that I sold the list and basically called me a liar.

[Dan C. Rinnert]

Originally Posted by SpudDS

Also i find your sencond point very annoying that you sign up for a freebie and then unsubscribe as soon as you get the gift, this isnt very fair on the person offering you the gift in exchange for joinning their list, if you are not willing to give their list a try then you shouldnt sign up for their gift!

Originally Posted by TMG Enterprises

I have to agree with this. I think it's a very greedy thing to do. I often unsub after receiving a free gift but only after seeing a few emails and figuring out that I am not finding any useful info or the person starts sending me several emails a day.

But, she's coming from the position that these marketers are selling or distributing her eMail address. She signed up to one list and did not agree to be put on multiple lists. It's not that she's unwilling to be on their list; it's that she thinks she's being put on countless other lists she did not sign up for.

I think she is mistaken there--that the spam she receives is very likely coincidental as I've mentioned. But, that is where she is coming from.

So, those marketers aren't building trust with her. Granted, it's due to circumstances outside of their control, but what needs to be considered is whether they could do a better job of establishing trust. How many other people unsubscribe after getting their freebie because of situations like this?

I think some onus must be on the marketer to do a better job of establishing trust so she doesn't feel the need to unsubscribe right away.

[Dan C. Rinnert]

Originally Posted by Scott Ames

I've gotten hate mail from people saying something like " Ever since I signed up for your list I've been getting spam. You sold my email and I hate you. Get me off of your list now "

The think is I never did sell, rent, or do anything with the list. It was purely coincidental that they started getting spam about the same time as signing up for my list. I'll never convince them of that though. They "know" that I sold the list and basically called me a liar.

That is another problem. You can't solve them all. ;-)

One way to get a good idea of whether someone is really selling your eMail is to use an eMail that would be difficult, if not impossible, to guess--meaning it's not a dictionary word or common name or anything you've used anywhere--and see if you start receiving additional messages beyond those which you subscribed to.

I have such an eMail address, and I've used it for two lists, both lists were from Warriors. To date, I've never received any messages except from those two people.

[milkyway]

I have been very suspicious in the beginning whenever I read that line ("I will never sell or rent..." -- yeah, guys, come on... ). That's why I got myself a dedicated email address that I mostly use for the lists, and I only subscribe to lists when I feel that it is not a scam (of course, I could always be wrong).

What can I say: By now, I've subscribed to a lot of lists. And I've never, ever gotten a single spam email to this email address. At the beginning, I was simply surprised. It took me a while to realize that there are actually honest people out there, doing business in the internet.

This was when I started to think that if you can earn a living online in an honest way, then maybe I could do that, too...

So, to (mostly) everybody out there: folks, you restored some of my faith in humankind!

milkyway

[Richard Tunnah]

Originally Posted by Stay At Home Mum

Does anyone actually believe this to be true? it seems that lately whenever I sign up to an optin list offering a report or a freebie of some kind that this line

'I promise to never sell, give away or rent your address to anyone'

doesn't seem to be true. Within about an hour of signing up I get my 'freebie' and then low and behold all of a sudden I get numerous emails from people who I never even signed up to. Most of them being for acai berry, ebay garbage, and several others that i cant remember right now.

The funny thing is that most times now as soon as I get the product on offer I will go and unsubscirbe because if this very reason - but yet I still get all these other spammy emails. Any one else encountered this?

I think the vast majority of marketers will not sell, rent or giveaway your email address as it's more important for their long term intregity and business not too. However they'll always been some unscriptious online marketers who will - just like you get dodgy plumbers etc!

Rich

[SOT]

Originally Posted by Loren Woirhaye

One thing you should do is NOT RESPOND to email solicitations
that are clearly spam. When you do it tells the spammer there
is somebody home so they send you more spam.

While this is not true in every case and sometimes it's just some
hapless MLM person who added you to their list because they
"thought" you might be interested (happens a lot to me), often
if you run Craigslist ads or whatever, answering email inquiries
which are not specific will usually get you tagged as a a deliverable
recipient for scam-spam.

So juts delete it. Don't answer it or the problem will get worse.

Well said Loren! And ESPECIALLY if you are being spammed by your own site! I got one the other day from my own site asking ME if I wanted a certain body "member" enlarging!! LOL!! Deleted it immediately! Just hope my site didn't sent that to others!

BTW does anyone know what would happen if I checked as "SPAM" any email from my own site's address? Would it mean I can't send emails? Or would it just assume that everything RECEIVED from my site was spam?

Regards

Susan

[ny_mariposa]

Most of the spam I get, I believe, has little to do with mailing lists, but rather I think my address was farmed off of directories where I listed my business.

There was one list I signed up to, where I ended up not only getting messages from that list, but also from about 4 others that claimed to be related to the first list. I didn't want all of those emails and it annoyed me enough that I unsubscribed to all immediately.

I wish I knew whether or not that was the source of my spam problem now, because it happened around the same time. I seem to be finally off those other lists, but the spam lists are a lost cause. They filter into my spam box, which I don't bother opening. I still send several new ones per day into my spam funnel, but it seems I'm doomed to spam hell unless I change my email address... which I hate to have to do at this point.