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Spammer Profile: Scott Richter

Posted by michael on from the call-as-often-as-you-like-no-minimum-purchase dept.

prostoalex writes "Westword.com published an article on Scott Richter, the owner of what is supposedly the nation's fastest-growing online marketing company, which mostly specialized in sending out those unsolicited electronic mail messages. Richter is the guy currently being sued by New York Attorney General and Microsoft Corporation for sending out nearly 9000 e-mails only to Hotmail accounts."

29 of 438 comments (clear)

  1. Know what I hate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's bad enough that they're spamming me, but then they lie about me signing up for their list. I didn't sign up, I know I didn't sign up, they know I know I didn't sigh up, so why bother?

    1. Re:Know what I hate? by Fr33z0r · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've had my (ISP) email address for the past 8 years or so, and when I first got that internet connection I was pretty naive, I'd use my real email address everywhere, it was on a popular site, it went unmunged on newsgroups and all was well. Not so long after getting it the spam started coming in, and it's increased over the entire 8 years without my involvement (I stopped using that address many years ago when I got my own domain)

      That address must be on every spam list/CD known to man, my ISP offers (free) filtering so I switched that on just to save my hard drive - I still get several hundred that make it through their filter every day, and they block tens of thousands each month - on the rare occasion when I go "oh, I signed up for an account on this site years ago, I wonder if my account still exists" - I go to the site, put that email address in the "remind me" box, fetch my new mail and literally have to do a search on that account's inbox - it's that bad that I can't even quickly find an email minutes after receiving it.

      So I've written off that account, I play around with anti-spam technologies from time to time and I use it as a throwaway account though, so I continue to let it exist and fetch my mail a few times a day - anyway... about 6 months ago I noticed I was getting dozens of the same email in a row from the same guys, for shits and giggles I clicked the unsubscribe link and did my usual "shauihfeuihgerisbuisrghsruighuisegr@hduiwehfeuiwh uighuierghruigher.com" - it came back with the "Thank you, you have now been removed from our list!" so I thought "ok, they're just building an unsubscribe list" - I put in my email address too (it's worthless now anyway, and I figured this way I covered my ass) and waited a couple of weeks - as I expected I just got spammed harder by them, to the point where I was receiving over a hundred of the exact same email every day. I looked up the contact details on the site that they were advertising, did a whois on the domain and got the contacts, whoised whatever was after the @ on each of the contacts and so on and so on and wrote my email.

      Essentially, I emailed the spammer and BCCd his ISP, the site he was advertising's webmaster, cust feedback, billing company, and anybody else I could find who had business dealings with the site or spammer that was responsible for spamming me so hard.

      I said "I unsubscribed from the list I didn't subscribe to, you were still sending hundreds of identical emails to me every day. As you are not honoring unsubscribe requests I don't know what else to do but go over your head.

      All, please ensure I am removed from this list, I don't care how, you are all responsible to an extent."

      for the next week I got about 10-20 of the same email daily, the week after I got
      It's a silly amount of hoops to jump through to get removed from one list (and futile, considering I get thousands of UCE from other sources), I did it largely to see if it would work, it did, draw your own conclusions :D

  2. New business? by monstroyer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just yesterday, Microsoft was devising a plan to invoice spammers, now they are suing a spammer. Who needs the operating system business when you got hotmail!

    9000 spam emails doesn't sound like that much. An acquaintance of mine is the developer of si20 and there's more spam than 9000 in a measly half a day of operations.

    Is this merely a symbolic legal pursuit? Or is this considered a lot of spam by the powers that be?

    1. Re:New business? by eln · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's not that it's a lot of spam, it's that this guy is easy to pursue. A lot of spammers are based in unfriendly countries and are very difficult to sue. This guy is easy to sue.

      The basic theory here is to pick the low hanging fruit, and hopefully the others will back down out of fear. Not likely to happen that way, but that's the idea.

    2. Re:New business? by ChaoticChaos · · Score: 3, Interesting

      RIAA has similar strategy.

  3. OptInRealBig's policy by AtariAmarok · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The policy from the guy's spam business site:

    It prohibits:

    "Unsolicited promotions, advertising or solicitations (commonly referred to as "spam"), including, without limitation, commercial advertising and informational announcements, except to those who have explicitly requested such e-mails."

    Hmmmm.....

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
  4. Never fails to amaze.... by Epyn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am amazed that you can run an entire business of sending out emails that no one reads. I understand tha overhead = negligable thing, but still...How can he afford the trained monkies to write these things.

  5. Will this last very long? by Srividya · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I am surprised that mass emailing is still profitable in America, with its restrictive new laws against spam. From India, cheaper connection costs and abundant IT expertise, in addition to laws which allow complete freedom of email, would seem to make India the much better choice for mass emailing business. How long till competition puts Mr. Richter out of business?

  6. Just Curious by Poligraf · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is it possible to "SPAM back" someone by the means of /. effect?

    Imagine a couple hundred thousand /.-ers sending angry mail to some sites/accounts each day ...

    One thing though is to somehow avoid showing your own address in order not to get into SPAMmers databases.

    --
    Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
  7. Who gave 'em that figure? by Dimensio · · Score: 2, Interesting

    $2mil/month? Riiiight. Someone should let the IRS know, as I highly suspect that they've not heard anything about this $2mil/month revenue.

    --
    STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
  8. "The Internet Is Not Free" by the_mad_poster · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Says asshat: What people don't understand is that the Internet isn't free.

    GOD I FUCKING HATE THESE PEOPLE!

    Since when does this dickhead own the Internet? Since when is it "not free" as in "you owe me money"?

    ARGH! I not only support the death penalty for these asshats, I think they need to deport this guy's goddamn family to central Cambodia.

    The absolute contempt that these people have for all other living beings outside their small inner circles is so mind-numbingly infuriating that I can't even come up with a suitable rant against this guy. The absolute level of FURY that these moronic losers can invoke through their childish, imbecilic, self-centered "give it all to me" outlooks on life could never BEGIN to compare to the narcissism displayed by everyone in Hollywood COMBINED. NEVER HAVE I SO DESIRED TO POP SOMEONE'S HEAD LIKE AN OVERINFLATED BALLOON!

    --
    Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
  9. I love these guys. by amarodeeps · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "I'm not going to argue that there isn't one person in forty million who didn't subscribe," Richter says. "But we document where the addresses come from, and when people complain, we remove them from our list. What people don't understand is that the Internet isn't free. I make my money by signing you up at my Web site, getting your information, and using that information to figure out what you like."

    Here we see a prime example of self-delusion and self-righteousness substituting for morality. Right, the Internet isn't free. But I didn't realize that I was paying Scott Richter to get online--I thought I was paying Verizon for DSL service.

    It is entertaining to see how much these people hate Steve Linford though.

    It's really simple folks: if what you are doing is legit, why do you have to forge your headers? Why do you have to hide behind false email addresses? If it is legit, why do you have such a hard time getting legitimate ISPs to sell you bandwidth? Figure it out.

  10. Re:Spam time! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Email address?

    No, get him with USPS junk mail. That's a whole lot more fun. =) It's been done before with the guy who was #1 at the time (Alan Ralsky or something like that, I beLIEve...)

    Get his home address and have fun...

  11. Another article on Snotty. by AndroidCat · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Talbott: 'Spam king' didn't opt for this call

    Having been steadily bombarded with e-mail come-ons for "Vi@gra," breast enlargements and the secret to "ALL NIGHT sex," an average recipient would no doubt like to tell a spam king to back off.

    So when Scott Richter's phone number landed on my desk, I called. And, lo, he answered. I asked him if he'd mind my printing his number in the newspaper.

    His colorful response suggested that he wouldn't like it. On the other hand, millions of us don't particularly like being spammed. To print or not to print his number. That is the conundrum. [snip!]

    (And, yes, he did print the business phnoe number.)
    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  12. Re:Free Advertising by djh101010 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I met one once at an Open Source conference and when you ask him what he does he very plainly states "I'm a spammer".

    I am a fairly mellow person, but boy, if I ran into one of these guys, I'd have a hard time not just taking a (physical) jab at them. I'm very sure I wouldn't (be able to | want to) stop myself from giving a very blunt verbal response.

    Long ago, there was a cracker in Milwaukee (early 1980's) who made it to the cover of Time Magazine. I ran into him a few years later, and the only question I could come up with was "Why aren't you in jail?"

    He wasn't amused. Onlookers were. I think that means I won that interaction, right?

  13. Look at any major spammer's past... by IANAAC · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They all have been in some sort of legal trouble.
    And it usually involves extortion, scam or theft. I wish the media would concentrate more on their criminal past. Maybe then people would get a clue and not do any business with them.

  14. Slashdot Interview? by GeorgeH · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How about a Slashdot Interview with this guy (or another spammer)? I think it would be really interesting to see what (civilized) questions we could ask him and what his answers would be. He says that he puts himself in front of the media so it shouldn't be too hard to get in touch with him.

    How about it editors? (I tried suggesting an interview with a spammer before, but since I didn't have a name or contact information the editors didn't want to hear it. I wonder why I should do their job for them when they're the ones getting paid...)

    --
    Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
  15. Bizarre Quote from article by Ars-Fartsica · · Score: 3, Interesting
    spamlord says: "What people don't understand is that the Internet isn't free".

    Thats right. Thanks to the spamlords its a cost-center for most firms transmitting and receiving this junk instead of a profit center.

  16. Re:getting worse by Steve+B · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I think we're beginning to see the wide-spread deployment of those new ani-filtering techniques some have talked about.

    What we need is a prosecutor looking to make a name for himself who is willing to do the homework to apply the existing anti-cracking laws (what is filter evasion, if not an attempt to circumvent computer security for the purpose of gaining prohibited access to other people's computer?)

    --
    /. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
  17. Opt in? by RT+Alec · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I once complained to "dotregistrar.com" about one of their clients. I used their web form to file the complaint, since they do not have any operational phone numbers. An e-mail address is required, so I used "alec@dotregistrar.mydoman.com" (I have configured my mail server to allow me to create these types of addresses on-the-fly). I never heard back from them, but to date I have recieved over 100 spam to that very same address!

    Their AUP does state:

    DotRegistrar may disclose any Required Information, specified in paragraph 10, above, to third parties or to the public at large, for any purpose and at its discretion.
    There is no information about data collected as part of a complaint, so I guess I was supposed to assume that. Any other dotregistrar stories? Did I "opt-in"?
  18. The number works - I just talked to him by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    So I called and found him on the corporate directory (press # then spell out Richter) and got him directly. No secretary or anything. At first he played very stupid (which was quite convincing for some odd reason) and then after I pointed him to the article ("uh what's slashdot?") his story started to change. The parting shot before I got tired of listening to his ever-changing stories and justifications was "well, I'm making a shitload of money doing this." Obviously we have someone who is very un-apologetic about his behavior and someone who needs to be introduced to slashdot. Let's introduce him, shall we?

  19. OK by throbbingbrain.com · · Score: 3, Interesting


    You can usually reverse-resolve a phone number through google like this.

    ...or at least narrow it down to a location.

  20. Re:Write your congress-critter! by Tom · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why exactly was the parent modded as Funny?

    Now while we can argue about whether or not it's a bit excessive, I'm taking bets that the sudden and brutal death of, say, the top 20 US spammers would bring spam down to 1995 levels almost instantly.

    In addition to the 20 cretins that we are rid of, the next 20 might also realize just who will be filling the freed-up slots, and a good part of them will move into something that resembles honest work.

    Now for the "may be excessive" part:
    Wars have been fought and thousands been killed for less.
    Spammers commit a crime that is not very much realized in the modern world - they attack the common. They don't rob one guy a lot, they rob everyone a little. In other times, there would have been no hesitations to subject them to the most drastic penalties.

    In fact, the death penalty should be modified for spammers to make sure it's slow and painful. A literal death by a thousand needle pricks might be very appropriate to the crime. Just pinch them once for every spam they sent.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  21. We have a winner by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    But Spitzer's lawsuit claims that there were ample reasons for consumer complaints. Microsoft had set up spam traps on its Hotmail service, e-mail accounts created for the sole purpose of collecting bulk mailings. How these accounts "opted in" for Synergy6's offers isn't clear, but in a one-month period, the traps snagged 8,779 messages from the campaign. Most of the messages contained false sender identities -- claiming, in many cases, that the sender was the recipient's user name or a major online company such as AOL, Yahoo or Hotmail.

    Richter says that Spitzer has yet to produce one piece of fraudulent mail sent out by OptInRealBig. Technically, he hasn't even produced an aggrieved mail recipient -- a live one, anyway. Although the lawsuit estimates that 5 percent of the recipients of the Synergy6 campaign were New York residents, the $20 million figure sought in the suit is based on the spam-trap examples of fraud. "Those aren't New York residents," Richter notes. "They're going to have to produce 8,000 New Yorkers."

    AOL is incorporated within Virginia and Virginia Code (law) views falsifying ANY header information as identity fraud and falls within the felony category. Mr. Richter, as a felony on probation, I don't think you want to go there. Unless you want to visiting your two other colleagues on the Spamhaus list.

  22. This could be him..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Colorado Divorce Detail

    County EL PASO
    Petitioner RICHTER, KATHRYN K
    Respondent RICHTER, SCOTT A
    Date 11/04/2003
    Docket # 001010
    Decree Type Separation

  23. Watch Scott the Spammer in action.. by Dynamoo · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Here's a very recent thread at Abestweb where Richter tries to con some affiliates into signing up to his program. It all starts to unravel when they begin to pick him apart. Look out for the Ukranian connection.

    Oh just for fun, one of Richter's outfits is CPAempire. Check out the parody site at SPAMempire. ;)

    --
    Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
  24. Re:PHONE NUMBER!! SPAM TIME!! :D by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Here's a link to all the real estate records I could find in Adams County that belong to S. Richter:

    10011 LOWELL WAY

    2670 W 80TH WAY

    Something

  25. Re:Proof that spam works (sadly enough) by pommiekiwifruit · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Yeah, but the Iraq trading cards is the only non-dodgy thing ever advertised by spam. Compared to fake drugs, fake degrees and genital enhancers. The sort of things that wouldn't even get advertised on QVC.

    Heck, I wanted to buy a deck! I just didn't (even from a web search) because I thought if that sort of things was advertised by spam it must be a con of some sort. So the spammer polluted the idea of me buying it from other companies on the web.

  26. Re:Spam time! by zero_offset · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Sucks up their time and money sorting that stuff out.

    No, actually it doesn't. When I was a kid, I worked for a company which did direct-mail advertising. (I dislike it too, but I was 17 and hadn't really received junk mail in my name yet, and this was back when "online" meant a 300 baud connection to CompuServ and spam e-mail was just a glimmer in some evil asshole's eye.)

    Anyway, we had people who hated direct mail, and they waste their time doing all sorts of "clever" things, and frankly, it was only noticed by the office staff when somebody did something exceedingly disgusting, strange, or illegal.

    You'd waste more of their time by trying to come up with something *creative*. Shit, why not make it fun for the poor asshole opening your envelope? They're working for minimum wage hand-keying response cards; they sure as hell aren't making the big bucks off annual subscriptions or whatever.

    In any case, when you send a million direct-mail pieces, you fully expect to get a bunch of junk back (the other stupid one is putting metal washers in the return mail... the postage is PRE-PAID, you won't cost them a single cent in extra charges), and you have hordes of low-paid drones to sort that stuff for you.

    *shrug* What else can I say? I wish it worked, too.

    --

    Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005