Sales from the EDGE
Back Issue #053
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Sales from the EDGE Issue #053
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Sales from the EDGE
Cutting Through The Clutter
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From time to time, the EDGE publishes important updates.
Sent ONLY to SiteSell product owners, the EDGE cuts through
the "white noise" of Web selling, covering only the
important developments that you NEED to capitalize upon.
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June 7, 2004
Issue #053
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SiteSell Value Exchange
If you have NOT yet submitted your site,
you're letting Search Engine rankings go
to your competitor. There's no charge...
http://value-exchange.sitesell.com/
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
o NEWS FROM THE SITESELL EDGE...
1) Beware the "Spammer In SiteSell Clothing"
--
o FEATURED ARTICLES...
1) Enough is Enough...
How to "Bounce" The Headaches Back To The Source
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~NEWS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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---1---
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Beware the "Spammer In SiteSell Clothing"
You may have received an e-mail this week, one that goes
something like this...
-------------------------------------------
Important Message to MY Downline,
I just received an urgent warning email from
the accounts department of the online
business that you joined a few months back.
They told me that you have not yet confirmed
acceptance of your last months stats or money
earned.
If you don't do this immediately then not
only will you miss being paid out, it will
also mean I don't get paid my over rides
which will be very sad as I am owed
$12,152USD this month.
Please, simply visit this link and log into
your account and accept your stats statement
and collect your earnings so I can get mine
too.
Please, click here:
http://ftbb.captureform.biz/capture/ftbb/affiliates.htm
Many Thanks In Advance
Ken
-------------------------------------------
They've just started recently, as you can tell by their
Alexa traffic chart...
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=captureform.biz
--
They are sophisticated and tried to make it look like the
e-mail was coming from "ken evoy" and/or "sitesell.com." If
you got one and if you click "long headers" on your e-mail
software, you'll see that's a lie, of course. Instead, it
was coming from Bolivia, China, Korea, etc., using other
people's computers to send spam, perhaps some sort of cross
of virus and spam that we'll see more and more of, I fear.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/04/trojan_spam_study/
We tried to track them down by signing up for what they were
pitching, but of course never got a reply. They are merely
harvesting addresses, which they will either spam or sell
(or both) later (which is why we used disposable free-mail).
Think about it. People who fall for their pitch, by their
very act, fall for spam. They are the perfect leads for
other spammers, who'll pay for that list! It's clever, but
why not put that cleverness to GOOD use? :-(
-----SIDEBAR-----
By the way...
If you did try to find out who was behind
this spam, by signing up with a disposable
"free-mail" account, and if you did get a
REAL reply back with REAL contact info,
PLEASE let us know at...
http://support.sitesell.com/contact-support.html
We have lawyers who'd like to meet those chaps.
-----SIDEBAR-----
If you do a whois of captureform.biz at www.whois.biz,
you'll find gandi.net and "Gandi Sarl," along with a whole
bunch of contact information, all of which is INCORRECT (a
violation of ICANN regulations). The phone number ends up
at some unfortunate lady in Arkansas, who was wondering who
the heck Gandi Sarl is... because she sure has been getting
a lot of calls "for that guy!"
-----SIDEBAR-----
I'll bet every one of those callers would
love to wrrrrring Gandi's neck, too!
-----SIDEBAR-----
Let's take a look at Gandi Sarl/gandi.net itself...
If you do a whois at www.betterwhois.com (my favorite whois)
on gandi.net, you'll find that it ends up at "Gandi Sarl."
And the phone number that Gandi Sarl provides for their very
own contact number is either invalid or ridiculous (33.14).
Actually, if you look up "Gandi Sarl" at Google (with
quotes), you'll find that "he" is a limited liability company
in France created in 1999, by 4 "well-known people of French
Internet world (Pierre Beyssac, Laurent Chemla, Valentine
Lacambre and David Nahmias)."
Gandi Sarl is, on the surface, a registrar. And no doubt, it
has many honest customers. Perhaps even you. If you are a
customer, please send them this article, and ask them to
comment or do something about it.
-----SIDEBAR-----
*****Update June 12, 2004*****
As mentioned above, we signed up at the
captureform.biz landing page to see if they
would reply, thereby providing trackable
information. They didn't, but...
Those brand new disposable free-mail
accounts, set up just for this, ARE already
getting MORE spam from other outfits. So
yes, this *IS* an e-mail harvesting trick,
all being run through gandi.net/Gandi Sarl.
-----SIDEBAR-----
After you finish reading this article, ask yourself...
"Do I really want my domain associated with gandi.net/Gandi Sarl?"
Honest customers are necessary for any successful F-R-O-N-T.
And everything points to them being a front. For example,
do a search for the following at Google...
+"Gandi Sarl" +spam
You'll find links like this...
http://www.mail-archive.com/spamcon-general@spamcon.org/msg00450.html
They are definitely spam-friendly. At a very minimum it
harbors spammers and allows them pretty free rein. At a
maximum, it's involved deeply in spam and simply lets honest
folks register domains as a cover for illicit activities.
-----SIDEBAR TO GANDI SARL-----
And if anyone at Gandi Sarl is reading this,
please do contact us and I'll be glad to
retract anything that is inaccurate. AND I'm
sure YOU will help us track down the spammers
and inactivate domains because the contact
info is bad, which violates ICANN
regulations, as you know. Oh, and by the
way, please update your own contact info.
-----SIDEBAR TO GANDI SARL-----
If you go to gandi.net's own whois on their site to try and
track down the spammers...
http://www.gandi.net/whois
... you still won't get accurate contact info for those bad
folks at captureform.biz. Same for a variety of other
spammers who have safe refuge at gandi.net...
darksoft.biz
http://www.toastedspam.com/stupid/disptext/darksoft.biz_0001
buycheapdrugs.biz
http://rocr.xepher.net/weblog/archives/000103.html
unbelievabledealswhole.biz
Want more? OK, visit these URLs...
http://www.polarbeach.com/topics/0103-Gandi.htm
http://www.polarbeach.com/topics/0603-Gandi.htm
http://www.polarbeach.com/topics/1203-Gandi.htm
Our good friends at polarbeach.com go right up to...
http://www.polarbeach.com/topics/0504-Gandi.htm
-----
We tried contacting anyone at the "contact information" for
captureform.biz, but drew a blank. Now try for ANY of
"gandi's spamdy" domains. The info is all wrong. Is this a
coincidence, or is Gandi's "registrar business" just a front
for gandi.net, who may in fact be the actual spammer?
-----SIDEBAR TO GANDI SARL-----
As I said, I'll be glad to retract anything
that is inaccurate here, with an apology.
Gandi.net has many domains in violation of
ICANN regulations. So if they are legit, I'm
sure Gandi will help us track down those
spammers and inactivate all those domains
with bad contact info. This is a strict
violation of ICANN regulations.
-----SIDEBAR TO GANDI SARL-----
What can YOU do? First of all...
Don't bother wasting time trying to track down the bad
guys at captureform.biz, unless you have the resources of
the FBI and Microsoft, combined. These types do not make
themselves trackable. We did manage to trace their host to
hanaro.com, a well-known spam-friendly Korean host.
If you like, do send a complaint to abuse@hanaro.com (use a
free-mail address if you do -- I'll bet that they harvest
addresses and sell them, too). I doubt it would do much
good, but you never know. Ultimately, THEY are responsible
for letting spammers work from their home base. We've sent
complaints, for what it's worth.
The good news is that Gandi Sarl seems to let one racket run
for a while from one .biz domain, then move on to another.
Google "Gandi Sarl" if you're interested. We are the
"victim du jour" for awhile, it would seem.
But please don't fall for it... and PLEASE don't even begin
to think that this is us here at SiteSell... or me.
It's not.
-----
The bad news, however, is that while we may be just the
"victim du jour," Gandi's domains just keep rolling along,
parting the feeble of mind from their time and money, and
wasting everyone else's valuable resources, with serious
collateral damage (as we'll see further below).
If you'd like to be a bit more active about doing something,
check out Gandi's page about spam...
http://www.gandi.net/support/SelfService/Gandi.php?groupid=103&locale=en_GB
It all means nothing. And they won't do a thing if you
complain. But do scroll to the bottom of that page and
click on the link to contact them and complain, letting them
know that you're boycotting their service, and telling
others to do the same, until they clean up their act.
If YOU were a legitimate registrar, you'd contact us here
at SiteSell pretty quickly, wouldn't you? I'll update
you about whether we hear from Gandi.
But here's the reply that YOU will get...
They'll send you a form letter that basically says it's not
their problem, that they can't do anything about it, that
they abide by all the rules, yada, yada, yada, pretty much
along the same line as their Web page about spam (above).
Once they do that, you have grounds to complain to the folks
who can revoke Gandi.net's license, but it will take a lot
of people to complain...
http://reports.internic.net/cgi/registrars/problem-report.cgi
Only complain if you have received this spam, been unable to
contact the sender, and not received satisfaction from
Gandi.net, the registrar. In that case, you have full
grounds to complain. And ICANN will be obliged to act if
enough people complain. But it will take many -- as they
note on the page above...
-------------------------------------------
Although ICANN's limited technical mission
does not include resolving individual
customer-service complaints, ICANN does
monitor such complaints to discern trends.
-------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT...
If you clicked on the captureform.biz URL in the spam at the
top of this article, you even saw a Web page with my name on
it (javascript-encrypted). It pretends to be promoting a
product called "Faster than Broadband and Free" and offers
affiliates money for giving away the product! Yes...
This fake offer is designed to be so attractive that it
fools you to sign up and give them your e-mail address. And
people do fall for it. Heck, that's the whole point.
If you signed up, they now have your address. And I would
advise you to change your address at which you receive this
e-zine, if you gave it to them. Please see the "change of
e-mail" notice at the bottom of this e-zine. And change to
another one that you use, or simply create a Yahoo! Mail
account if you have no other address.
-----
Gandi has done some damage to us, we believe, because
suddenly we're on the radar of a spam filter that provides
e-mail filtering for several major ISPs. We have to clean
up this mess, which is going to cost time and money, despite
the fact that we have never spammed.
Which brings up the important topic for today's article...
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~FEATURED ARTICLES~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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---1---
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Enough is Enough...
How to "Bounce" The Headaches Back To The Source
I don't know about you, but I'm tired of being "collateral
damage" from faulty filters. Here's what I mean.
INTRODUCTION -- You're an honest, non-spamming Net marketer...
--
STEP 1) You send an automated e-mail to someone who
specifically wants it, either because...
o customer ordered, so you send a post-order e-mail with a
thank you, a receipt, and some important information
o person joined your affiliate program, filling out a
rather lengthy form and even clicking "I Agree" to your
Affiliate Agreement, so you send a "welcome" e-mail with
important "getting started" information.
o prospective customer subscribed to an e-zine, so you
send an e-mail asking that person to confirm the
subscription, per the usual "confirmed opt-in" requirements.
--
STEP 2) The e-mail is filtered out by the ISP or the mail
service of your new customer, affiliate, or subscriber.
-----SIDEBAR-----
How does e-mail get falsely eliminated?
Filters have very complicated algorithms and
they make mistakes since the complexity of
evaluating e-mail is enormous. It's so
common, they have a term for it...
"False positives."
-----SIDEBAR-----
STEP 3) The non-recipient of your e-mail complains about
lack of response from you (but your reply may be blocked,
too!). Or worse, s/he may ask for a refund or decide not to
be an affiliate or not to subscribe -- after all, if you
can't "get your act together and send a simple e-mail," you
couldn't have been very good!
--
BOTTOM LINE --> *YOU* have all the headaches.
--
What's wrong with this picture?
Simple. I'm amazed that the newspapers have not covered
this side of spam and that no one has questioned it. But
think about the duties and responsibilities of each of the
parties involved for a moment...
It really does NOT matter WHY the filter blocked you, unless
you are an outright spammer of course. It is the DUTY of
the ISP to deliver the mail.
Plain and simple...
"It is the DUTY of the ISP to deliver the mail."
But...
Nobody cares about the honest marketers online who are
caught up like dolphins in the "FALSE POSITIVE tuna nets" of
all the anti-spam e-mail filters. After all...
When a filter accidentally catches a good guy's e-mail, the
customer actually thinks that they might be "bad guys"...
"Hey, why else would my ISP filter them?"
And the ISP or mail service is certainly happy to give that
impression. We know, because customers have told us so! And
if the customers don't know the truth, how can THEY care?
In other words, they start to doubt your integrity.
--
There *IS* a solution to all this, and we'll get to it. But
first, here's a word of advice, if you sell online...
Monitor bounce-backs from important e-mail (ex., your
post-order and post-affiliate-registration e-mails).
Because more and more of them won't be getting through. AND
if you are not on top of that, YOU will be blamed.
We started monitoring these LONG ago, before spam was the
huge issue that it is now, simply because many people enter
bad e-mail addresses, have over-quota Yahoo! accounts, etc.
In those cases, our all-important, post-order e-mail would
not get through. When we see a bounce-back with a reason
like "account full" or "account inactive" or "no such
account," we phone the customer and tell them, rather than
let them wonder and worry why we're not sending that e-mail.
But now, as we continue to monitor IMPORTANT bounce-backs
manually, two ominous new filtering trends are appearing...
1) Hotmail filters WITHOUT the courtesy of sending a
bounce-back message. So you have no way of knowing that your
customer is NOT receiving your mail, until Hotmail users
start asking why they haven't received your mail. Worse,
Hotmail users can't even whitelist filtered mail.
2) Other ISPs do send bounce-backs. Even better, they give
you a useful message telling you that the e-mail was spam,
so at least you know you're being filtered (which gives you
a starting point to work to reverse the problem). But
still, there are two problems here...
a) the number of false-positives are going up
b) the message in a bounce-back due to a spam
filter never asks you whether there might be some mistake,
and if there is, to please contact them. It would be a
brilliant idea (if they cared!) because spammers never get
or read those bounces, for three reasons...
i) they don't care
ii) there are millions of them
iii) they don't want to be traced.
However, honest marketers, like you and me, do care -- we
WANT those messages. If we've made some sort of mistake,
we'll correct it. How can we fix what we can't see? And if
it's the ISP's mistake, how can we let them know if we don't
get a chance to evaluate the reason for the bounce?
-----
Now, try to imagine the chaos it causes us when 30% of our
orders suddenly do not get their post-order e-mail. There
is no reason or recourse given, no contact to e-mail and say
"You've made a mistake." 99.9% of network abuse managers
are harder to reach personally than spammers! ;-)
We have to (manually) reach those customers (i.e.,
by phone) and allay their fears, change their address, etc.
Why?
Because the ISP that bounces our PERFECTLY GOOD E-MAIL
simply does NOT care about those very real businesses that
they are hurting, which they call "false-positives." Well, I
call them MISTAKES and we're not paying for someone else's
mistakes anymore.
Only one conscientious network abuse manager, from a
mid-sized ISP in the U.K., had the brains and concern to ask
"if this is a mistake" in the bounce-back (which can be
customized by the administrator). When we explained the
situation to him, he asked for the original e-mail that was
filtered to be sent to him.
THAT is when he told us which filter they used. Research
and communications revealed the other ISPs and mail services
used the same filter (the same ones that were blocking our
e-mails to customers). So, thanks to this lead...
We had a solid clue on which filter to approach. And even
better, our U.K. friend is passing our e-mail on to the
filter, asking why it was filtered and to 'whitelist' us.
Hopefully, that will clear up our problems this week. But
THAT is not really the point.
The point is... there are NOT many chaps like this guy,
people who realize that there are honest marketers who are
getting hurt, AND who hold the filtering service accountable
to do the best job possible. So...
You and I are going to reverse this flow. We are going to
force ISPs and mail services to be accountable because we
are going to impact THEIR customers, who are also our
customers, the very same people who are not getting the mail.
Here's what I am going to work on over the next few days...
Ever see the 1976 movie "Network"? Well, it's famous for a
network news anchor who goes a touch mad (well, that part
won't be me, OK??) and he propagates an "on air" mantra...
"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"
Soon, he has millions of viewers yelling the same thing.
Well, I think it's time for us to get tens of thousands of
marketers to do the same. They in turn, if they implement
our simple and free solution, will cause millions of
customers to yell the same...
"I'm as mad -- give me my e-mail!"
We have to stop being "the dolphin" and start becoming the
wall that bounces problems back where they belong --> to the
ISP *WHO MUST DELIVER THE MAIL* that their customer wants.
Let's review the basic process, again -- it's so obvious...
1) An honest marketer sends a requested piece of mail,
whether that mail was ordered, requested from support, etc.
2) The honest marketer sends that e-mail.
3) The ISP filters it out.
4) The customer doesn't get the mail s/he wants.
So who's to blame?
The ISP or mail service. Obvious! THEY are responsible
for delivering the mail. Some might say that the filtering
service is to blame, but that's not *OUR* concern, nor the
customer's concern. If we impact the ISP or mail service by
clearly informing their customers and then sending them back
to the people who FAIL to deliver the mail, then the ISPs
can take care of their own problems however they like.
Believe me, we've done this once before... with Hotmail. And
they backed down after two weeks of pressure, and after
saying that they would never change their filter and that we
would have to be bonded (an onerous and expensive process
from a third party owned by ex-senior Microsoft people).
This time, however, we're not going to turn a counter-
measure on and off, over and over (it's too much time and
effort to do that each time there's a problem). We're just
going to put up a "one size fits all" solution, and leave it
up. If the mail gets through (which it still usually does),
no problem. But as soon as it doesn't, the customer is
"programmed" to complain vehemently to the APPROPRIATE
place... the ISP or mail service. You could say...
A bounce for a bounce. ;-)
--
Not only are we going to resolve this for ourselves, we're
going to give it away to you. And I'll ask you to give it
to your friends who do business online.
Although I'm upset about this, this is not about anger or
emotion. I am "mad as hell," as I'm sure you are, but we
won't show it. Instead, this will be surgery.
We will simply, coolly and professionally explain the
situation to the folks who aren't getting mail. The results
will be the following...
1) Customer understands situation and holds marketing
company blameless. Customer should rightly be upset that
they are not getting mail that THEY WANT.
2) Customer is well-informed and is "bullet-proofed" against
misleading statements from ISP or mail service
3) Customer receives full whitelisting instructions.
4) If whitelisting fails (ex., Hotmail), customer complains
to ISPs or mail service, and if s/he still can't whitelist,
changes e-mail address (ex., to Yahoo! Mail) and lets them
know they're changing.
5) Customer does not complain to you, and only has to
contact you again if s/he had to change e-mail address.
6) You end up with ongoing valid way to e-mail customer.
--
If enough marketers take a common action, then the abuse and
neglect from ISPs and mail services will disappear. They
will adjust attitudes and actions in the face of a multitude
of informed customer complaints. And, for you personally,
the use of this solution will reduce your pain due to a
needless, irresponsible loss of mail that is not your fault.
Stay tuned.
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