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Junkie Loves His Spam
VicPylon writes "Here is the reason we have to spend time and money on spam filters. This character actually responds to and buys from spam. I wonder if he is aware that he is supporting digital pollution?" I guess this proves that there really is something for everyone online.
...my comment on the other thread. It seems there really are people out there who value their inbox being filled with mindless junk.
In a survey by MailShell, a San Francisco antispam company, 8% of respondents said they have bought products via spam. Spammers say that percentage is probably low because many people are too embarrassed to admit responding to spam.
Well, there you go. Far higher than I'd ever have imagined...and the spammers admit that replying to spam is embarrassing. Guess they realise a bad thing when they see it.
Although
Mr. Soto recently spent more than $100 on vitamins
you do have to question the man's ability to appreciate the value of a dollar. 100 bucks on vitamins? I'll go down the high street and get three bottles for 10, thank you very much.
Nothing about his activites seemed very interesting until I read this part:
He says he purchased two pornography Web sites, again via spam, and ran them for a while, but then he decided they weren't worth the trouble and disabled them.
Spam that advertises buying and managing for porn sites? What?!
The problem I would have with buying *anything* from a spam email is the fact that the company has resorted to spam to pitch their wares. To me, it always smells of desperation and contempt for the customer.
In the current anti-spam climate, a company cannot use spam to market themselves and be seen as a professionally-run organisation.
Patriotism - the last resort of scoundrels.
I'd be interested to see how often he pays for something he never receives...
I have discovered a truly marvelous
I don't think so. This could very well be completely true. This guy is a habitual impulse buyer. He's addicted to buying stuff and it evidently gives him a thrill to do so.
I've known several people that were addicted to buying things like this, only they did it at the mall, or pawn shops, or thrift stores, etc. I had a friend who's parents bought stuff all the time. Their house was stacked high with junk they never used or even touched again after it was purchased. They literally had to move large piles of random things whenever they wanted to sit on the couch, eat at the table, or do most anything in the house.
If you're addicted to this extent, what better place to feed your addiction than the internet and specifically, your email box? There are thousands of things pitched to you every day (maybe every hour!) no matter what you're doing on the net.
Just like every other media outlet, it screams "YOU NEED MORE STUFF!"... but I digress. :-)
The Internet, and spam, is just providing an unfortunately convenient way for him to acquire these purchases.
The article explains that he used to hunt rummage sales, thift stores, and flea markets, then turned to the Internet after hurting his back. He buys on eBay, and via spam. Spam is just one part of his disease, and it made an interesting story. From the tour his wife gave of their apartment, it sounds like he doesn't need most of the stuff he buys--a typical symptom of hoarding.
Another symptom will be that he is unable to throw away things that he has purchased (like those boxes of vitamins), even if he doesn't need them or they are no longer of value.
OCD medication is usually ineffective for hoarding, but counseling can help.
At any rate, he does not respresent a typical email user, but at the same time, he is not alone. It is unfortunate, but there are people with these kinds of disorders out there, and they play right into the hands of spammers and telemarketers. The sad thing is when people take advantage of them.
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
This is what I truly feared would happen with spam. Every Sunday my grandmother actually looks forward to sifting through the hord of junk snail mail that comes to her house. Not that she doesn't have a life, just that her life is somehow enhanced by it :-(
Yeah, why settle for the tax write-off receipts from Goodwill? You can sell your junk to this guy, and the thousands (I shudder to think, MILLIONS?) like him and make twice the dough!
*sigh* I am all for freedom, and I believe in the purest form of capitalism, and unfortunately spam falls in there. It's just a shame that enough of the population is ignorant to the fact that they are perpetuating a very annoying business model.
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Actually, reading the article, it's not an OCD thing. He doesnt respond to every spam. Most of the things listed in the articles that he purchased are used. There is mention of a humidifier/AC unit that's unused, but the error of omission is probably because it's WINTER and it hasn't been installed yet.
A lot of people enjoy shopping, browsing around garage sales, flea markets, etc.. A lot of elderly or disabled people like to watch the Shopping Network, use eBay, and are the people targetted by spam.
The article, and slashbots, go out of their way to make him look like some sort of retard or dupe. But there's nothing wrong with him. He likes bargain hunting. He hurt his back, so he does it through the internet.
Article even mentions he turned a profit reselling the stuff online.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The whole article seems a bit phony. Especially the use of the word "anti" by Mr. Soto. There is one group of people who are fond of using the word "anti" to describe those who dislike spam. I get a strong feeling that this is not just some innocent guy that likes to buy from spam, and his admission of spamming once before leaves me even more suspicious.
Beer wants to be free
It's almost a given that one day soon SPAM will be pretty much eliminated, or at the least, significantly diminished.
Now, go back in time to: Life Magazines and to older comic books - could there be one day in the future that sellers on eBay pay collector dollar for old Spamvertisements - just like they do for Wrigley's Gum ads, Coke ads, Life magazines, comic book ads?
I saw in someone's journal that they were collecting SPAM just for posterity sake - to get some good laughs when they were 75. Another was collecting them as a reference database for creating filters.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
This was on the front page of WSJ yesterday so I assume they did some fact checking on it. It wasn't buried in the back of the paper.
.NET co-workers to move to Java. I don't think so.
That said, my first reaction, is one I always have: why when an interesting topic comes up: why do I find only sarcastic/hopefully humorous comments get through my level 4 filter? Still waiting for an answer on that.
I read the article in paper and my reaction was that they did everyone a service by writing about such people. I have no idea why anyone would buy this stuff but the fact of the matter is that spammers wouldn't spam if they didn't make money from it. MS will only change the type of software they make when they don't make money from it. It's a simple, though perhaps unlikeable fact. For every piece of junk that clutters your tv screen, your mailbox or whatever there is a reason for it other than just to bother you (and me!). It's there because someone is making money from it and because someone, like the guy in article, actually buys it.
I don't think educating such buyers is a reasonable option. Sort of like educating the user of one OS to choose to go to another one. This afternoon I'm going to educate my
But the only way to solve a problem is to understand it. The more we understand people like this guy the more likely it is that someone can find a way to direct spam/bad commercials to them and not the rest of us. Maybe a Do Call Me list.
"Mr. Soto says he also has bought some adult DVDs and videos via spam, but never got around to marketing them.
Yeah right! I wonder if his wife believes him.
Decode these
no the guy is not an idiot...
he's a spammer. read the article... He buys items and re-sells them on his "websites"...
This ladies and gentlemen, is a spammer, he is trying to do PR for his "industry" and if he was to be researched a bit further we would see what spam companies he is behind...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Spammers employ many illegal methods. They forge headers, use other people's servers to send the spam, use other people's real addresses as the sender, they do brute force username dictionary attacks against mail servers, they lie about how they got your address or about your ability to be removed, and finally they sell fake and infringing products (Viagra is a trademark) and are full of frauds and scams. Those are all illegal, or at least they should be. Do you support those things? I doubt it. So how do you propose to only allow "good" spam while blocking this stuff?
The article shows him refusing a number of emails that are presented to him. So, while I tend to agree with you on the hoarding part, I think either it is not to a pathological degree -or it's a different pathology entirely.
I personally beleive that this is somewhat clear proof that marketing by e-mail can work, but only if it is taken in hand by honest companies who do not deal through an nigh-on anonymous mass-mailing scheme. Take a look at the statistics, and you will notice 8% of the respondents to a survey conducted asking whether or not they had bought anything through spam replied affirmatively, though spammers say that this number is higher due to the fact that most people having bought products through spam can not bear the embarassment of admitting it. Now if you reflect on those numbers, and consider that a lot of people delete spam as soon as they see some in their inbox, or use some kind of spam filter, you could perhaps come to a conclusion which may not be so far off the truth.
Let's suppose the companies which now sell their products through mass-mailing could come to some sort of agreement with e-mail services. This agreement would involve allowing the user to choose whether or not they would like to receive some offers from the company that has come to the agreement with the service. The e-mail service could choose to impose limits to the company, such as the number of e-mails sent and the products offered in the e-mails. As this feature would be an opt-in option, the user would be responsible for what comes through their inboxes. I think this kind of feature would actually benefit every party involved, as the e-mail service could really control what would be coming through to their users' inboxes, the users would know what to expect in their inboxes, and the companies could actually make more profit from this system. What I mean by this is, as most e-mail users would be expecting to receive their offers by e-mail, they would be the people who would be actually expected to buy what comes through. There would be more sales than there would be complaints and deletion. Last of all, this would of course benefit the people who would like to receive some honest, discounted offers by e-mail. The whole system would be completely legal.
In my opinion, this is how marketing by e-mail could actually be something that works, and that, at the end of the day, leaves both the sales companies, the e-mail services and the e-mail users satisfied.
"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect" -- Linus Torval
The scenario I would like to see is spammers simply puting "Advertisement" on the subject line (as per the legislation). They will still get all their repeat buyers and guys like this one, and filtering for those who don't want it will be a breaze. ISP's won't have to do anything anymore, which will remove the incentive for spammers to trick them in some way. And all the cool filter methods like the bayes can turn around and be used to filter ads into categories that they are most interested in (and we can still make fun of them, but it will be light-hearted, because it's not effecting our inboxes anymore :)
There are two problems with this. The first is the percentage of buyers who are not repeat buyers, and who hate spam. It's the person who hates spam, but when he was tricked into looking at the spam that was selling those Iraqi most wanted cards, broke down and got some, and then swore off spam from then on. This wedge of income for spammers is what marketing types are always counting on. The philosophy is: "They don't know they want it yet- they need me to tell them that they want it before they buy it." This isn't a major cache cow for most business people, but it's the wedge of income that marketers, including spammers, spend the most effort on. What could be done to remove this incentive from marketers? Beats me.
The second challenge is Microsoft (though it's not a challenge yet- it could become one). They would much rather be in control of the whole solution- they could have stamps or push their passports or do something like that that would bring in more revenue or cement their hold on the email market etc.- we all know the routine. To their high level corporate strategy, all the spammers simply saying "advertisement" would ruin an excellent opportunity to... extend the empire, so to speak. So, I don't know all the arguments yet, but you can bet they'll be making some in the next year or so that try to defeat the simplest solution.
So the lesson is, as much as I hate to say it, ISP's need to reward spammers who say "Advertisement" on the subject line, IMO. They need to let their spam through into some box for those who want to receive it. I believe you would see a slow, steady trickle of spammers resorting to this, because they would get the best response rates from it.
Almost all people I know who ordered something from spam emails have either never received anything or got a product so bad they had to throw it away or got their credit card info stolen. Unfortunately the later seems to happen more and more often.
I did RTFA and I'm here to tell you this guy needs professional help. What a nutcase.
People that engage in this type of behavior on a regular basis have some sort of OCD problem.
I know a few people like this guy, they troll garage sales and flea markets and their houses are full to bursting with *shit*...
They have this vision that they are going to resell the crap at garage sales and flea markets and make a living. Truth is, they lose BIG every time they set up at a flea market. They spend ~$200 to set up a booth for the weekend and if they are really lucky they sell about $15 worth of the crap they collect.
At garage sales it just costs them the time to do it but they usually only bring in less than $50 for the trouble.
These people are chasing the brass ring but they never catch it. What a waste of time, effort and money..
The whole thing stopped making sense when he complains of only getting 17 spams in one day.
The article then states, "He's the kind of person spammers love: a serial buyer."
If he were the kind of person spammers love, then why am I getting many times more spam and I've never bought anything via SPAM? I'm still just a potential sell, while he's the guaranteed one.
I call BS.
This is not my sig.
There's a big difference between suppressing THEIR freedom to send spam, and suppressing HIS freedom to respond to it. No one is seriously pursuing the latter.
If he wants spam, he is free to OPT-IN. The rest of us should be left alone.
Funny thing about spam-filters. I know a doctor and she complained about how all the e-mail about Viagra (sent from colleagues) got lost, she did however get lot's of spam containing the spelling V!@G.RA (or there about).
She and her colleagues now use codewords to describe the drug in e-mail.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
I'm not joking here. I'm just surprised that his wife puts up with it. He is buying junk that he doesn't use because it makes him feel good to purchase things. That is messed up.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Yeah. There was a comment further up that said the guy must be some sort of professional spammer looking to improve the image of spam.
Spam isn't bad. I have to say I am delighted to receive spam and that it exists.
:)
If there wasn't spam, I wouldn't have a Bayesian filter..and nor would you. Im sure you would actually miss having one. I know I would, a Bayesian filter is a geeky thing to own. Do any of your non-PC literate friends have one? No. Of course not. They probably use hotmail.
So yeah, spam is great, I never actually read any, I just receieve it, in a nice packaged and quarantined form and it goes into my "spam" box.
long live Bayesian Spam Filters, and long live spam!
just my rather weird 0.02
I once set that up using my own e-mail system - duplicate all the messages and try to filter out all the spam. Theoretically it shouldn't make a difference, but I couldn't ever get the accuracy above 85%. I reckon that this is actually more difficult - spam has a really limited vocabulary - viagra, porn, mortgage, refinance, pharmaceutical - but my real e-mail has fewer "killer" words (though any of MUN, c++, bio, flightgear should ensure safe passage!)
Exercise your right not to vote. thinkoutside.org
Of the three Orlando Sotos in New York State, only one is in Manhattan, much less Midtown Manhattan.
Orlando Soto - (212) 399-0626 - 325 W 43rd St, New York, NY 10036 (public info via google)
I think this really says all there is to say about this loser:
"45-year-old grandfather"
I mean, jesus... great judgement that guy has, huh?
You're describing a problem with email as it is presently standardized. Not Spam.
Spam is the symptom of a problem: a broken, obsolete, 'consensus' based Internet. I mean, the 'standards' are still called 'Request For Comment's, for goodness sake.
The Spam problem won't go away until the Internet is regulated. At which point most of the people who complain about Spam will switch to complaining about the regulations.
---
We can set up some standard place for people like this guy -- say, a specific domain (gimmespam.com? ibuyeverything.com?). Anyone could get an email account there; maybe it would even be a Yahoo! Mail-like webmail service. It would have an associated website listing everyone's email address on it, made optimally machine-readable (say, a CSV file). Maybe even associated interests listed ("crafts, cigarettes, and drugs, please") so spammers can target even better.
Think about it: everyone wins.
- The spammers can concentrate on those who will likely buy, thus dramatically increasing sales-to-spams-sent ratios (and decreasing costs, hence increasing profits)
- The spam-lovers get tons more spam to play with (hey, knock yerself out, buddy!)
- The rest of us get left alone (why bother sending email out to the wilderness where there's slim pickin's, when you can just raid the chicken coop?)
Only issue is seeing if there are enough people like this guy around who will join in.I say let's do it!
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Soto may be a off toward the end of the curve, but the general prevalence of his type of behavior is the basis for a multibillion dollar advertising industry, not just spam. If average, normal people didn't act this way, at least to some extent, modern advertising as we know it wouldn't exist.
If your doctor friend had used a good Bayesian filter like the one that comes with SpamAssassin, this problem would likely take care of itself. The filter would learn that, say, "Viagra" is 75% likely to be not spam, whereas "V!@G.RA" is 100% likely to be spam.
www.clarke.ca
However, since I filter anything saying that, doing that is unlikely to end up in my inbox, so it's unlikely that I'll complain about it.
According to the article, in order to break even, 1 in 10,000 spams need to be responded to. In this guy's case, they aren't breaking even, but making good money from him. So he's responsible for a multiple of 10,000 spam messages.
How does NYRE Management feel about an employee responsible for perhaps a 100,000 spam messages daily? And someone who spams himself?
NYRE Management corp. 332 East 95th street, NY, NY, 10128 tel : (212) 360 6030, fax : (212) 360 7479.
With the grandmother spammer story a couple months ago, and this grandfather spammer story now, I wonder if this is an organized effort to soften up possible jail sentences they are now worried about due to the Can Spam Act, and the fact that they aren't as technically knowledgeable as Richter and Barry Head & Family and Bernard Balan et al.
He can spell: "Now Only $67 INITIAL and $12 Per Month Thereafter... Cancell anytime!"
He has fantastic grammer: "Please Note: These packages are available seperate."
This is funny too: "We Found the Best products & Values then Added even More to it!..." You added even more values? Really? Like how about some damn values like 'morality' and 'honour'...
What a disgrace.