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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.
I have this bridge, you see...
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Anyone know this gey's email address? He seems just the kind of person I need to help me transfer $500000 from the deceased king of Nigeria's personal bank account...
The stupid thing about this article is you can buy all that crap and find all of those deals on the internet without having to wade through piles of spam.
So basically all this guy needs to do is google for aromatherapy or cheap newports and he will probably get better prices than he is getting now.
For Orlando Soto,
No Day Is Complete
Without Some Spam
Lovers of Unsolicited E-Mail
Keep Industry Afloat;
'It's Like a Treasure Hunt'
By MYLENE MANGALINDAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
NEW YORK -- Orlando Soto looks forward each evening to spending time on his home computer after work. But when he logged on one Wednesday night last month, he was disappointed: There were 17 spam e-mail messages waiting for him.
"Only 17," he lamented, scrolling through them. "That's a very light day."
Mr. Soto routinely comes home to some 150 e-mail pitches, and he loves getting them all. The 45-year-old grandfather opens most of them. He answers spam questionnaires. And he buys stuff pitched in spam e-mail -- again and again. "Everyday people call it spam," says Mr. Soto, who prefers calling it "unsolicited" e-mail. "But I'm open to everything."
If everyone hated spam, it would disappear. But like the traditional direct-mail marketers and telemarketers who came before them, spammers survive public outrage, filters, lawsuits and regulations because innumerable times a day, somebody, somewhere responds with money.
One such somebody is Mr. Soto. He buys spam-pitched aromatherapy oils for his wife and pharmaceuticals for himself. His bookcases are lined with first-edition mystery novels he bought via spam. In a corner of his two-bedroom midtown-Manhattan apartment stands an antique pinball machine bought via spam. He plays Internet bingo at five cents a game on a Web site pitched to him by spam a few weeks ago. He buys stuff via spam for himself and to resell on Web sites he sets up -- a business idea he got from a spam pitch.
Spam helps him "unwind" and "lose the stress of the day," Mr. Soto says.
He's the kind of person spammers love: a serial buyer. He says that he sometimes spends hundreds of dollars a week buying via spam. Most spam responders are one-time customers, e-mail marketers say, so repeaters make all the difference. Scott Richter, who runs a mass e-mailing company called Optinrealbig.com LLC in Westminster, Colo., says about a fifth of those who order his vitamins and other products buy again. "Those repeat buyers help generate a bulk of the revenue," he says.
There must be a lot of Mr. Sotos out there. 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.
Spammers say they typically need just one buyer per 10,000 spam messages to break even. Mr. Soto recently spent more than $100 on vitamins from a spam pitch that touted: "Buy 1, get 2 free, plus free shipping!" If this particular solicitation was typical, spam experts say, the spammer probably sent it to about five million people with a commission of about 30%. If 500 buyers averaged spending what Mr. Soto spent on the vitamins, the spammer would bring in about $15,000 in revenue from the mailing.
Mr. Soto's daily spamfest starts after he gets home from his $40,000-a-year job as a building supervisor at NYRE Management, a real-estate firm that runs Manhattan apartment buildings. After dinner with his wife, he sits down in the leather chair in his home office and starts opening spam. He typically goes through 50 spam pitches before he finds one that's enticing, he says. He then pores over the pitches he has culled, winnowing them down to the must-haves.
On the recent Wednesday evening, Mr. Soto quickly reviewed the contents of his six e-mail accounts. "See, this is unsolicited," he said, pointing his cursor at a pitch aimed at mom-and-pop companies: "AOL Small Business News." He gave it some thought but decided it was from too big a company; he prefers spam from smaller purveyors. "No," he pronounced, skipping to the next spam: "Hi, Date Number 868." A boring adult-related pitch, he decided before moving on. The next was a pitch for mortgages, which he doesn't need.
"
FREAK!!!
I think the term you were looking for is "sad pathetic freak!!!". Bookmark this page and if you are ever feeling a little down, re-read this and reflect on the sad empty life that this guy leads. He responds to spam as a way to get gratification, sure all impulse shoppers do this, but at some point, you have to wonder if the attraction of spam over surfing for the same trash is that the direct request gives him the impression that some one is paying attention to him, so he responds positively in order to please the attention giver . So very sad, especially when you consider that his actions impose third party costs on all of us by encouraging spammers.
I've finally got around to changing my sig
There's actually an old joke about this with essentially the parent's line as the punch line.
I think it went something like:
A guy was sick of all of his wife's demands, each day it was for something different, more extravagant and expensive
Woman: Honey, I want to see a plastic surgeon.
Man: What for?
Woman: I'd like my breasts to be bigger, they're not big enough for all the new clothes I want to buy.
Man: Why spend the money on a plastic surgeon, you can do that at home for free.
Woman: What? How?
Man: Just rub your tits with toilet paper -- it sure worked for your ass!
I'm sure there's a 1001 variations, this one just reminds me of the one I heard.