First of all, I apologize for the length of this message. I have tried to
make it as readable as possible.
Several days ago I reported to SpamCop an unsolicited commercial email
message from a real estate professional addressed to me as if I were a real
estate professional, which I am not. He replied to the report. I am
including direct quotations from our correspondence, eliminating references
to both his name/email address and mine.
Here is his reply to the Spamcop Report:
"I am very sorry that a message got to you and that it may have caused you
concern or inconvenience. The email being sent has been compiled solely by
myself and has been selected only on the basis of people who have listed
properties for sale or lease on the internet or people who have registered
themselves as real estate brokers or real estate sales persons who are
using the internet for marketing properties for sale or for lease. If you
are neither, I am sorry for the mistake."
I replied to the above with "I have not listed properties for sale or lease
on the Internet or anyplace else. Nor have I registered as a real estate
broker or real estate sales person. I am in no way involved in the real
estate business."
In this same email message, he asked my opinion about doing an opt-in list.
He asked it this way: "Due to the fact I have been very careful to select
people that are truly interested in real estate to receive notices from me,
I would like to make a suggestion to you. I propose to send an email that
will only ask if the reader would like to continue to receive information,
news and mail from RealtyInvestor.com. They will have to respond "Yes" in
order to stay any future mail from me. If they do not respond, they are
automatically off the list. Therefore they have to take action to get
further information from me, they have to do nothing to never get an email
from me again. Please let me know your thought on this."
I replied to the above point with "I applaud your plan to do an opt-in list
as you have suggested and asked my opinion about. When people must say
"yes" in order to receive email, they are far more likely to want it. They
may later forget that they said yes, but you will find that you are much
less likely to have irate recipients. You will also want to let people
know the specific email address with which they are subscribed as well as a
dependable opt-out address. Some list service providers facilitate this
opt-in and opt-out process. This will clearly distinguish you from
spammers who have no integrity."
He acknowledge and thanked me for my reply and then sent a second message
with this request: "My ISP asked me to ask you if you would mind
withdrawing the complaint against me with SpamCop. I along with the ISP
would greatly appreciate it."
I can certainly understand that he would like to have the complaint
withdrawn; however, there were a few missing pieces for me, so I replied
with a series of questions: "Have you removed my email address from your
mailing list? I have lost track of the address to which the original
message was sent, but you should have no addresses <@mydomainname.com>.
Have you sold/given my address to anyone else? This morning, I received an
email message addressed to a real estate professional (about termite
control). Where did you originally get my address? You say that you have
personally collected the addresses, so you should not have any trouble
determining how you added mine. If you received my address from someone, I
would like to enlist your aid in getting my address off that list."
His reply to the above questions was: "Your email address has been deleted
already. The address I had for you is <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. Your
address has not been sold, given or released to anyone. Please take a look
at the privacy statement on my website. I will not and would not ever give
out email addresses or sell mailing lists. As to where I got your address,
I begin collecting addresses last summer when my site was being programmed.
I collected them from real estate newsgroups, broker registries where real
estate brokers list their name and contact information so that they can be
contacted and from real estate sites where property is listed. I am sorry
but can not tell you exactly where your address came from because I don't
know from which of the above sources it came from. I did not buy any
mailing lists, as I said before, I collect them myself. Given the volume
of junk mail you are getting, your email address may have been spread
around by someone at some time and that is how you got onto some list
causing me to think you were in real estate."
So, my conclusion is that this is a well-intentioned naive person who is
spamming. Certainly not the low-life spammer that most of us are dealing
with, but still he is sending unsolicited commercial email messages. I
have never participated in any of the newsgroups he mentions. I don't want
to punish this man; I do want to do the right thing. I could really use
suggestions from this group.
How should I respond to his latest email message?
Thanks,
A SpamCop Member
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