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E-gift Certificates = Spam?
vincewazalooski writes "Good read in NY Times Circuits section today about how spam filters at Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. often interpret gift certificates from Amazon et. al. as spam. Worst part is, you might send a gift cert to someone, they never get it and you never know."
I never got the point. You spend $50 (cash, which is usable anywhere) to give someone something that's worth $50 -- but only at a brand of store. Why?
About the only response I've ever heard is that it shows more thought than cash, but still:
1) Even if it shows more thought to give someone a gift certificate, to, say, "CD Hut", because you know they like CDs, just not which ones: you've now deprived them of the ability to get CDs from any other store -- even if CD Hut doesn't carry the ones they want.
2) For a large store that sells lots of unrelated items (like Amazon), it doesn't seem like you're showing any additional thought above and beyond cash.
I'm amazed this comes as a suprise to anyone. A lot of spam is written to look like it's a gift of some sort or another - that's part of their hook, and a lot of spam (and viruses) use spoofed addresses that can easily look like they're from someone you know.
Any spam filtering software worth it's salt should at least take note of those gift certificates. Okay, so just this once it's genuine, but how is the software supposed to know that?
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
This is exactly why my spam filters (spamassasin) don't delete my suspected spam, just move them to a separate folder that I check occasionally. You can never be *sure* that your filter(s) are working perfectly.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
their snail mail gift certificates look like spam (junk mail) as well. it doesn't say amazon anywhere on the envelope, they come from "A2Z Gift certificates", and are easy to get mixed up with the onslaught of credit card offers and other crap. i made a point to call someone i mailed one to using amazon's site (the rest i mailed to myself to hand-wrap) to make sure they didn't toss it by accident.
How's the spam filter to know? I had to turn off my spam filter because it would classify everything that came from retailers as spam. All the retailers that I asked to put on their email list was all "spam". I don't filter spam at all anymore. It's no big deal. I delete the ones that I get and all is fine.
I suppose one answer to gift certificate is to have them emailed to you and then forward them to the recepiant personally. That's what I typically do.
-Brent
-keywords analyzed-
G enuine:1
Amazed:1
Surprise:1
Gift:1
Hook:1
Software:1
-------------------
spam weight = 6
-------------------
analysis complete: Post is Spam
If I give little Johnny 80$, he might go buy Vice City. If I give little Johnny 80$ at CD Hut, little Johnny can get 80$ of CDs -- no Vice City.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Very cute.
Some notes I sent friends about whatever got screened by my own filter (on bcc) as spam because I put a $ in the subject field. Brilliant bayesian filter my eye.
In any case, the gift certificate should REQUIRE the recipient to check in at their site to confirm receipt. If no confirmation is rec'd, the merchant could try again, then notify the sender with the option to void the certificate. This is easier than tabulating receipts yourself because (1) that's work and (2) not everyone says thank-you (hey, I'm catching up!).
The Spam filters still don't work for crap when it comes to real spam.
There are widely deployed individual, private blocks on amazon.com anyway due to their habit of spamming their users (at least they used to have such a habit, but I'm not willing to find out if they've reformed), and probably also because of their excessive patenting. Sending a gift certificate from Amazon is thus an extraordinarily stupid thing to do - there are good reasons why it might never have a chance to get there.
Even without the blocks - seriously, should you trust what amounts to cash to email without having any way to know it was safely delivered? If you do, you get what you deserve.
"Once it has been sent to the recipient, it's essentially the property of the recipient and not the sender," said Patty Smith, an Amazon.com spokeswoman.
Legally speaking, this is not true. The value represented by the certificate is only the property of the recipient once it has been placed beyond the recall of the giver. If it is possible for the giver to recall it, it's not the property of the recipient yet.
In other words, refusal to refund cannot be based on the property being that of the recipient. Rather, the property is that of the recipient only if the store will not, under any circumstances, cancel the certificate and refund the money to the giver.