Scam or not - you decide.
Funny Story
The other reason for this page was on the 17th April 2009 I recieved what I can only assume {at this point & you will see where I am going in a minute} what is to be a viral email or a scam {of some sort..confused I am}.
Anyway I list it below and my response created and emailed on 19th April after much thought.
From: webpartners@xxxxxx.com Please let me know your thoughts. |
The above email got me thinking, is this a common occurance or am I just a lucky person, anyway upon further investigation {I spoke to my brother ;-)} I found out that the email seems to be a generic email spurious or not it got me thinking even more.
Google was our friend if you search for the first line of text on the email ("I`ve just been searching for potential partners and having") and check out the results. This is the link you find:
http://andreinchile.com/2009/03/19/i-am-getting-some-easy-to-resist-advertising-deals-offered-for-andreinchilecom/
Easy to resist obviously, but I am a little more inquisitive than that...
I did manage to find some others of the same type with little variance. (and different search variables)
http://www.screenpages.com/ecommerce/archives/000458.html
Although this seems to be an incomplete thread about an email, yes formatted exactly the same as ous, it still adds weight to the fact it looks more suspect the more occurances of the same thing you find.
This one actually changed my perspective on the whole email:
http://www.mickipedia.com/?p=1384
Ido actually think these emails are produced from a 'general' programme which you can purchase on the net for various amounts of money {depending on what you want} - the one I checked out was called linkmachine it seems that for 'free' you can spam to your hearts content, is spam too harsh a word? {they do have differing level of spam control..sorry thats that word again}
Sorry back on track.....
Ithought in conclusion to all my reading about this email I would respond after all they had my webmaster email address already didn't they and as I have the facility for 'FREE' promotion without even a link back I thought I would throw the door open to them to see if I could provoke a response.
From: webmaster@madbug.co.uk Hi David, Forgive me for being a little suspicious about your email below, especially after searching the internet and finding several other exact emails from different companies to other people offering the exact same options as the ones detailed below. Whereas I find the idea of a link exchange etc of interest I thought I would email you back as email is my preferred form of contact :) What I would like to suggest is that you register on my website using the promote menu which will enable you to activate a membership {all free of course} and then upload an image 80*70 along with your website details and a description of your website and what it does, this will then enable me to prove if you are actual or not and then I may be interested in a link exchange, although by then you will already have one on my website :) Eitherway forgive my approach but these days you cannot be too careful. Regards Paul. |
Well we got a response, a little expected to be honest as it ends all communications with them and possibly stops any potential further issuses arising. As detailed below:
| From: webpartners@xxxx.com Sent: 21 April 2009 10:22 To: webmaster@madbug.co.uk Subject: madbug.co.uk and xxxxx.com Hello Paul, Many thanks for your note. We really try hard to check all sites when identifying potential partners but as with any process it isn`t perfect and we occasionally target sites that we really shouldn`t. Our sites are not relevant to each other so search engines might penalise any form of linking.Please accept my sincere apologies for our having missed this when we initially contacted you and my assurance that we won`t bother you again. Sorry again for the inconvenience. Kind Regards - David Caswell CEO, www.xxxxx.com |
I chose to remove all records of the company name as unless it is on my terms I don't really want to promote them ;-)
After checking out the site mentioned in the email {my copy} it would seem that they wouldn't be in need of any additional promotions and they are part of a bigger organization.
Ihope this is useful to someone when doing exactly what I did and search for the reasons.
At the end of the day if you get one like it make your own decision!
The end....
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