Reply to: SPAM laws

[Joe Black]

Personally I just ignore spam...I also think its pointless to get angry at things that won't change - however not everybody is like me or you and some people get in bad moods and spam often serves as the last straw...

I think most people do try to ignore spam, whether it's just deleting anything you don't recognise, setting up filters or using some sort of anti-spam tool.

That doesn't mean it doesn't become a pain in the arse though when you end having to wait while said tool works its way through the 500 pieces of crap just to get to the one good email because you haven't logged on in the last day or two.

If it was trully a targeted mail-shot which offered something useful, e.g. "dear well paid person, please accept our offer of a one day Porshe test drive" then I think people would think different, but since 99.9999% of it is just viruses or untargeted rubbish I'm not suprised some people get annoyed.

My personal annoyance though is when you have an email address which has been kept spam free, someone due to lack of care on their part allows it to be added to the ultimate spammers contact list.

[AtW]

Because I had said I don't understand why people waste their time responding then you choose to infer I am trying to justify spamming.

Personally I just ignore spam -- responding to it is pointless as their email is fake or shut down, and they will just add your email to list of "good" emails to spam even more. I also think its pointless to get angry at things that won't change - however not everybody is like me or you and some people get in bad moods and spam often serves as the last straw -- while its a stupid reaction its still fully within their rights and what I don't like is to see Dodgy saying how people who would complain about his spam (cold calls) are somehow at fault.

[ASB]

But surely its THEIR time - what are you their boss to decide how they should spend their time? Regardless of what you think this is not an excuse to spamming.

It probably is their time. Or their companies, whichever it makes no difference to me how they choose to spend it. I happen to think it is a pointless waste of it, but if it gives them some satisfaction then fair enough.

Your last sentence is curious though. Because I had said I don't understand why people waste their time responding then you choose to infer I am trying to justify spamming.

I get a fair bit of it, probably if I'd accepted all the offers for my knob would now reach Mars, Mrs ASB would have nailed all the doors shut I'd be in 300 racing syndicates and control all the money in the world. But it's not really different from all the dross that drops through my letter box.

I accept it's a huge problem, mainly because it is so cheap to do, but responding in any way is only going to make it more difficult - there is a known good responsive address for the senders to exploit.

[wc2]

Okay not quite feck off

More like "thanks for your mail, we are not interested in what you are offering, Please refrain from sending us further mail"

There is a big difference in the mails I sent to the ones offering you penis pills and watches. - Send a mail back to them and it will bounce from a zombie machine or you'll be added to more lists as being a guaranteed mail address.

Mine was targeted at a specific industry - some of the companies I mailed carry out the service in house.

They were being polite.

[AtW]

However they obviously have far too much time on their hands if they can be arsed to send an abusive reply.

But surely its THEIR time - what are you their boss to decide how they should spend their time? Regardless of what you think this is not an excuse to spamming.

[ASB]

"3 mails telling me to feck off"

I must admit I don't understand this. Ok so they are hacked off because they feel you spammed them. However they obviously have far too much time on their hands if they can be arsed to send an abusive reply.

[AtW]

AtW I despair with you. Your own business as a contractor (or any of you) would fail if no one was allowed to cold call.

I have not made any and not going to.

Bottom line is this - there are some laws that will be sooner or later used against you: your lies about having permission from an MD will only land you in hot water, its just a matter of time.

More importantly your business is doomed - in 10 years there won't be agents like you: you are just way too inefficient and your job can be done by a non-profit Ebay like structure that will match contractors/employees with employers. Very high level headhunting will certainly require specialised human input but you are really at the bottom of the foodchain in this respect, right?

[DimPrawn]

Good for you. Just don't spam me or else I'll kill you.

[wc2]

If anyones interested..

500ish mails out..

29 bounced

18 telephone calls - 10 resulted in business 8 - still working on
24 mails asking for more information - 7 resulted in business
3 mails telling me to feck off

It took me 3hrs to gather the mail addresses

Results - Got 17 new compaines I'm dealing with one of which is an excellent catch.

First mailshot that's every worked for me and it cost nothing !!

Happy Days

[DodgyAgent]

This is one of the most popular websites in the UK:
tps online notice there is also a section for corporate registration.

Today the spam blocked at the client's corporate gateway was running at a sedate 3-4,000 per hour, usually it climbs quite a bit higher than that. Figure out the bandwidth, cpu, manpower and other costs on that for yourself DA, then ask yourself why we are 3 contractors short of our needs.

I am not sure that I am dealing with anyone who is capable of discussing anything logically here. I rather suspect that maybe I am banging my head against technology obsessed Geeks. You people seem to think that only established and big businesses have a right to exist as businesses. How on Earth does a small business establish itself unless the proprietor of that business picks up the phone and starts hustling ? Are you people saying that only businesses that have large advertising budgets should be allowed, thus ending cold calling once and for all?

AtW I despair with you. Your own business as a contractor (or any of you) would fail if no one was allowed to cold call. Remove agencies from the picture altogether and ask yourselves how you would obtain work if you were not allowed to call anyone who had not given you permission to call them in the first place.

Also AtW there is no such thing as a person who gives truly independent advice. Communism tried and failed to create a society where everyone worked and lived for the collective good. But human nature is the opposite to the tenets fo communism, and whether you like it or not everyone from mother Teresa to Genghis Khan instinctivly acts purely in their own self interest, whether that interest is curing the sick or murdering children.

This is why public services and monopolies in general do not work, this is why people with jobs for life are far less productive than those that work in a competitive environment. I cited the example of pension selling, this is a perfect illustration of how technology and government interference are failing society.

[AtW]

why we are 3 contractors short of our needs.

I am sure he will say that had you not blocked that spam then he would have been able to offer your valuable service of being middle man in provision of contractor services...

[bfg]

Cold calling is so popular

This is one of the most popular websites in the UK:
tps online notice there is also a section for corporate registration.

Today the spam blocked at the client's corporate gateway was running at a sedate 3-4,000 per hour, usually it climbs quite a bit higher than that. Figure out the bandwidth, cpu, manpower and other costs on that for yourself DA, then ask yourself why we are 3 contractors short of our needs.

[AtW]

That is rude and unnecessary. Who judges whether a business is needed? Who are you to judge? How do you know whether a business is suitable to supply you unless you talk to someone and ask them questions?

Consumers (businesses and individuals) are the ones to judge if business is doing something they want.

Why on earth should commissions be declared?

Because it shows conflict of interest -- salesperson would recommend the product he gets most commission for, this is not always (in fact rarely) the best choice for the buyer, thus commissions have to be declared so that buyer gets chance to make good purchase.

If that was the case then surely profits of companies being represented should be declared.

And you saying you do not declare profit of your company? Are you saying I can't go to the Companies House and check them? Or perhaps its communism already here?

FYI I hate communist and communists and choose not to live in Russia now because its effectively under control of scumbags I hate -- this is something you have no clue about because you never lived in communist and you just use its name to call things you personally don't like.

[DodgyAgent]

if YOUR SERVICE IS REALLY NEEDED then businesses would look up available providers and may or may not contact you. If its not happening then go create some business that does something that is actually REALLY NEEDED, something unique and valuable people would love to even queue for.

That is rude and unnecessary. Who judges whether a business is needed? Who are you to judge? How do you know whether a business is suitable to supply you unless you talk to someone and ask them questions?

Why on earth should commissions be declared? If that was the case then surely profits of companies being represented should be declared. You cannot get away from communism can you? No wonder you are out of work fiddling around with a poor man's google.

The financial services is an interesting example of unintended consequences of poor legislation:

Since pensions became regulated by the government and commissions to sellers of pensions have been cut everyone is trying to use the internet to sell them along with low paid financial advisors. The result? Because Pensions are one of those things that people dont think about other than as a cost there is no good pensions advice available, and no one is "selling" the (considerable) advantages of pensions as a concept, so therefore people are not saving for their old age.

The result?

You tell me.

[AtW]

At some stage AtW cold calling needs to be done for any business transaction to take place, whether it be the advert on the TV, or the sight of goldjobs' website coming up whenever you do any job search on Google.

BS.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with cold calling.

People don't like coldcalls - their wish has to be respected, where as you give no concern about cold calls. When I was in "proper" job I had to take cold calls of businesses looking for manager responsible for this or that to try to sell them some package, or like water delivery. My answer to this is -- feck off: if YOUR SERVICE IS REALLY NEEDED then businesses would look up available providers and may or may not contact you. If its not happening then go create some business that does something that is actually REALLY NEEDED, something unique and valuable people would love to even queue for.

If a company is prepared to invest in employing and training outstandingly good, persistent, hungry and delivery orientated sales people it is usually a sign that they are a company offering a high quality service.

Bollox -- I worked for a "sales-driven" company and I can say that if company spends so much on sales people, especially if their salary structure is heavily commission geared (reminds you some business eh Dodgy?) then the company has not got really valuable quality service. If it had then it would not need "high quality sales people", like do you think a kid could not sell a highly popular car like new Porsche 911 that has got long waiting lists? You don't need saleperson to sell one of those -- it sells itself, but where you need salesperson is to BS their way on a car that nobody wants to buy really - that's why high presense of especially commission driven salesforce is a sign of company that has no good product.

IMO - there should be law that would FORCE salesperson to disclose up front commission level he or she gets for sale or an item. This is actually done in Financial Services I believe, but it should be applied elsewhere.