One email I got told me:
1.The size of the banner is very heavy.
2.The rotation and geotargeting is not good.
We would like to recommend two very feature rich banner tools.
PLease (sic) try them and improve the revenue earning stream of your site.
The site doesn't have a banner. It doesn't have any advertising at all.
Another email had a link to Share Your Experiences. It said, "Someone who knows you is attempting to share experiences and opinions about you in our online community.
The purpose of this email is to inform you that a posting has been made about you at our website. This is email is not commercial in nature.
If this email message was delivered to your spam or bulk email folder please notify your ISP or spam filtering company regarding this mistake on their part." (At least this last line shows they have a sense of humor.)
According to the site, member #M00491032 has information about me. He/she claims to know me socially and that the experience they wish to tell about happened in the last year.
This seemed odd because anyone who knew me socially would probably not know that email address. That, and the fact that I can't think of anyone I've socialized with in the past year...unless video game characters have gotten Internet access. Yes, my social life is that pathetic.
According to this site, it's a scam that is trying to trick people into paying for premium services from the site.
Shame on you, John Torrey (john.torrey@shareyourexperiences.com) of 2711 Centerville Rd., Suite 120, Wilmington, Delaware 19808 (Phone: +1 (516)2148365).
Shame on you too, Pedre Nieto of A+Hosting, 302 E. Carson St., Suite 100, Las Vegas, NV 89101 (sysadmin-level1@aplushosting.com).
Posted by marybeth at June 11, 2004 01:37 PM Other StuffHey thanks so much for writing about this "Share your experiences" scam. I received dozens of emails from them and I was as skeptical as you were. But let me say that I was kinda scared. What if someone were to publish a lie about me and suddenly it will be all over the Net and I would not be able to do anything about it because some John Torrey thinks it is a great way to get rich. Just sounded as if they were a bunch of crooks trying to trick unsuspecting consumers. Your hit was on the very first page in a Google search and I feel much better that the company appears to be some kind of an illegal operation.
Posted by Jay at June 17, 2004 01:21 PMIn the virtual world of the Internet, the only thing you really have is your reputation. Shareyourexperiences.com and other sites like it play on the fear that someone is trying to damage it.
People new to the Internet see an email like these and think it's part of the violation of their privacy they had been warned about (bad, bad, evil Internet.) Anyone whose been online for a while knows there are plenty of loonies who will say anything to get attention. Either way, the first impulse is to find out what someone is saying about you.
The thanks really should go to the site I linked to and the others that did the research that let me know this was a scam.
Posted by marybeth at June 18, 2004 09:01 AM