Safe List Scams
by David Downes
When I first became a Webmaster, I was eager, just like most of you, to
inform people of my site's existence. I quickly discovered that there
are many pitfalls that await inexperienced newbies. One of those
pitfalls is the so called 'Safe Opt-In List'.
I was recently reminded of this danger, when I received an e-mail from
one of my newsletter subscribers. He had recently suffered at the hands
of one of these 'SAFE' e-mail list scams that exist and almost lost his
ISP, after they had received just one complaint that he was spamming.
I am pleased to say, the subscriber didn't loose his ISP. He was lucky
but you may not be, if it happens to you.
In truth, it is very rare to find a completely 'safe' opt-in mailing
list. There are lots of sites that offer a free service whereby you
subscribe to various opt-in mailing lists, advertise the service, then
you may send your messages to everyone on the lists you have joined.
However, these are not always what they appear to be. At best, you can
be swamped with 100's of e-mails every day or at worse, the mailing list
is full of auto-responder addresses and your
message never gets seen by anybody.
Never, ever pay for a 'safe' opt-in list, almost every one is a scam of
some sort or other. The addresses on these lists have more than likely
been harvested from web sites, e-zines, e-groups and such services as
described above.
Hackers have been known to obtain company members' e-mail addresses and
sell those, e.g. MyFreeMailer which was a very safe scheme for sending
messages. It was recently hacked and its data base, of member's e-mail
addresses, has found its way into 'Safe' lists. Some scam artists will
even offer to pay you for your own mailing list.
The only really 'safe' mailing list, is the one you create yourself
either by using such programs as Listbot (http://www.listbot.com) or by
people requesting to receive e-mail from you or by using a service you
may offer, e.g. a free ads e-zine.
If you receive unrequested commercial mail from people, don't get
annoyed about the spam. Send them your commercial material in reply and
add them to your list ~ you can bet you have been placed on their list.
It is only right and fair that if somebody wants you to read their mail,
then they should be prepared to read yours.
If you do use an opt-in list, always inform the recipient of this fact
AND always give them the option of being removed from YOUR mailing list.
This option should ALWAYS be done via e-mail and NOT by sending them to
a web site.
Remember, one person's 'safe' list is another person's spam.
Finally, something I am always on about. Never expose your e-mail
address book! This is a gold mine to the spammer. If you
send an e-mail to multiple addresses, always use the Bcc (blind copy to)
feature of your e-mail package. If you are unsure how to do this, drop
me a line at magic69@...?subject+c-help and I'll walk you
through it.