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Spammer Gets Spammed
William L. Jones sent us a link to a wired story about spammers getting what they deserve: it amused me. What also amuses me is my new hobby:
I now send the postage-page envelopes back from junk mailers. Empty. Eat that! 30 cents out of your pocket! Yeah! I guess now that we've evolved past sword fights, I need something to vent steam.
Telemarketer: "Hello Mr. X, let me tell you about this great offer..."
Me: "May I ask your name?"
Telemarketer: "Joe...I have a great dea..."
Me: "May I ask your last name Joe?"
Telemarketer: "I don't see why you'd need that."
Me: "May I remind you that under FCC regulation you are required to state your first and last name upon request?"
Telemarketer: "..I didn't know that...Joe Doe."
Me: "Then I guess I can inform you that it is your employer's responsibility to inform you of FCC regulations, and that if you're going to making these calls, the FCC requires you to know these regulations. If your employer does not inform you of the regulations, they are committing a felony. May I ask your employers name?"
Telemarketer: "Wow... I didn't know that. I work for Credit Card Company X."
Me: "Joe, I asked YOUR employer. You work for a telemarketing firm, not a credit card company."
Telemarketer: "I'm not allowed to tell you that.
Me: "Then I may remind you that under FCC regulation that you MUST state your employer's name as well as your immediate supervisor's name upon request."
Me: "Furthermore, if I request to be added to your 'Do not call' list, you MUST add me to the list. If your employer is not keeping a list, they are subject to fines up to $500,000, and I am entitled to a $500 voucher."
Telemarketer: "Sir, I just called to ask..."
Me: "You never stated your employers name. Please don't commit a felony, Joe."
Telemarketer: "Phone Services X."
Me: "Please add me to your do not call list. If I get a call from Phone Services X within the next 5 years, I will hold you, Joe Doe, and your employer, Phone Services X, responsible. I will contact the FCC and you will be prosecuted."
*click*
...my pop was owner of a company and got several calls a day requesting donations.
he finally started saying "Oh, you need to talk to the corporate office, and ask for Mr. Wolf."
Of course, he gave them the ph. number of the local zoo...
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
check out spamcop. They'll notify abuse@, postmaster@, etc., on your behalf. Just cut and paste your spam into their web form. Their cgi does the rest. Scans the headers, locates the true source(s) of the spam, looks up any links/email addresses in the message itself. Works great.
Never meant half of the things I said to you. So you know, there's a half that might be true - G. Phillips
About a decade ago myself and a few friends decided to take action to increase the demand side of the economic equation for recycled paper. At the time, supply of post-consumer recycled paper was about three times larger than demand.
What we did was go to all the libraries and workplaces we could, gather all the postage-paid subscription cards, and write various different economic messages, asking the magazines and software companies to use recycled paper for some of their material. For software companies, it was the manuals; for magazines it was just the insert cards (paper plants to produce clay-content magazine picture quality paper did not exist in North America at the time).
One of the reasons it worked was we had a limited targetted message asking for something that was not only acheivable, but was cheaper too.
For some of these we made stamps to stamp all the cards. Then when our group had collected a few thousand of the cards, we'd send off bundles of 100 or so in different mailboxes throughout the city. For a period of five to ten days. Which meant that thousands of these postage-paid cards would flood the target for weeks on end, from various places, and various people, all at the cost of the magazine which published them.
As a result, a number of positive things happened. Magazines started to send only three or four of those post-paid insert cards in the magazine (before we'd get 20-30 per issue, which kept falling out). They started using recycled paper for the inserts, and sometimes even the magazine (e.g. Science News). And software manuals started being printed on recycled paper.
And since demand for recycled paper increased ten-fold, new non-chlorine recycled paper plants were built in the US and Canada, saving untold forests from being logged.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Yeah, it really strikes a blow against telemarketing to take it out on the poor guy making minimum wage whose circumstances have made him desperate enough to take one of the worst jobs in the universe.
The same can't be said for spammers, though, since they typically are self-employed jerks...
I've been doing this for years. Instead of empty I toss in some prizes. That way the person opening the letter will have something to talk about on their break. All kinds of things have found a new home this way:
- Little plastic army men.
- Out of focus photographs.
- Change. (Costing more in postage than it's worth)
- Lettuce.
- A printed warning about the Goodtimes virus.
dude, get some perspective. I've put in my share of hours deleting spam, but come on - comparing that to rape?
We're in our cushy air conditioned offices working on computers and suddenly exacting retribution on a spammer is "brutish"? It's like a playful slap on the wrist, which will perhaps make them a little wiser.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
I think flat scrap iron would be the thing. That way it will fit *inside* the envelope. See this article for more info about what you might be likely to get away with mailing. And be sure to give your postal servant a small box of chocolates as a thanks.
In a related story, the IRS has recently ruled that the cost of Windows upgrades can NOT be deducted as a gambling loss.