Before you start that spam-bot, before you hire someone to put your advert-flyer under my windshield wiper, before you send misleading links to your gambling/porn/drug business to my web log, before you send me an instant message; please try to think this through.
Just think for a second what you would do if you were receiving all this crap.
It does not take a lot of common sense to realize that you are actually hurting your own business. Yes, it is essentially free to send out billions of emails or blog comments or instant messages. Yes, it’s dirt cheap to hire someone illegally for a couple of hours “as a contractor” to stick flyers under windshield wipers in a parking lot. I am not talking about the cost of sending the spam. I am talking about the cost of alienating your customers.
For your information here is what I do with spam:
When I find a flyer under my car’s windshield wiper in a parking lot I generally do two things with every single one: first I make note of the business being advertised and I make a solemn vow to never patronize that business again. If I have a few minutes of free time, I frequently wad the flyer up, walk to the usually near-by business and throw it into their open door to return the litter. If I do not I recycle the trash with the rest of the crap that gets mailed to me. I have in the past simply tossed it from my car, but years ago someone pointed out that is littering too – so I refrain from doing that now.
Most email spam is ruthlessly filtered from my email inbox. Sadly this sometimes takes out legitimate mail from friends too, but that is the price we all pay for your arrogance and rude behavior as a spammer. Those spams that are fraudulently posing as legit mail and make it through my spam filter receive special treatment, aren’t you proud? Here’s the special treatment. I make note of the sending business and/or product and make a solemn vow to never patronize that business and/or product again. Then your carefully crafted piece of shite gets the ignominy of the same delete bucket. If your note poses as a attempt to fish for my bank account and password, I forward that to the Federal Trade Commission so they can investigate and nail your life to a prison cell.
You lucky instant message spammers get away with a lot. So far most of you are simply strangers sending a “hello” or “yt” to verify that I am really online. Lucky you, I simply ignore you now… but when I find I way to blast you off the face of the planet, I will. If you actually have the audacity to advertise a business or product, take note… guess what I do. Bingo! You are correct, I carefully make note of the business or product being rudely shoved in my face and I make a solemn vow to never patronize that business and/or product again.
Lest you web log comment spammers think you are something special, let’s be specific and tell you exactly what happens to your comment. First it gets filtered from my blog with Akismet, that puts your crap in a special holding area where I can scan unique business and product names very quickly (thank you so much, Akismet) and I can quickly make large lists of businesses and products to never patronize again.
Those of you who elect to send me junk mail through the United States Post office are lucky. Short of filling your own pre-paid envelopes with your junk and sending it back to you, something I lost patience for only a few days after trying out, I simply recycle your crap with the cardboard and mixed paper. I do note who the sending businesses are though, and never patronize your business again. I also stopped returning the pre-paid envelopes because I no longer want to reward the U.S. Post Office, who blithely sells my name and address to direct marketing firms and spammers. WTF?!?
I first started all this with the infamous telephone cold callers, but now I get no cold calls ever. Not a single tele-marketer has called me in the four years since I switched to having mobile phone only. I’d like to think it was from years of vowing to very patronize the businesses nor products being tele-marketed, but I suspect it’s because you are not allowed to rack up my mobile phone minutes.
So, this begs the question: why the hell can’t our elected officials understand that I pay for my web hosting, I pay for my email, I pay for my connection to the internet… why should my time and bandwidth be wasted on these rude spammers?
So I am begging all spammers to think before they send. Trust me, you’ll be far better off advertising your legitimate products and business in both the Yellow Pages of the local phone book and in search engines like Yahoo and Google. Those of you selling illegal products should either give up, or spend your efforts lobbying to legalize your stuff. Just get the frack out of my life, for your own good.
{ 2 } Comments