Fun With Spammers
A while ago I found myself on the mailing list of a boiler room spammer. Every few days I'd get an advertisement claiming enormous returns on my investment if I signed up with their company. Eventually I responded by calling the number in the email. I told the person who answered that as a major Hollywood producer I had a lot of money but not a lot of time to invest it, and that I'd appreciate his company's help. He was more than happy to send me a packet including a prospectus, numerous risk acceptance and liability wavier forms, and a prepaid overnight FedEx bill. I threw out all the papers and sent the following packet back to them:
A few weeks later the same thing happened: I got another email from the same company. I called them back again, told them I was very rich and very interested, they sent me another prospectus, and I used the prepaid FedEx bill to send them another care package:
They never spammed me again.
The moral of the story is that invasive marketers - spammers, telemarketers, etc. - make their profits because people who aren't interested don't talk to them. If you want to do your part to stop spam or telemarketing don't just hang up - invent a story to waste as much of their time and resources as possible.
A few weeks later the same thing happened: I got another email from the same company. I called them back again, told them I was very rich and very interested, they sent me another prospectus, and I used the prepaid FedEx bill to send them another care package:
They never spammed me again.
The moral of the story is that invasive marketers - spammers, telemarketers, etc. - make their profits because people who aren't interested don't talk to them. If you want to do your part to stop spam or telemarketing don't just hang up - invent a story to waste as much of their time and resources as possible.