A note to ALL NP users, old and new

[Archangel]

This had been an issue for a long time but I don't think it had ever been addressed before, thus I'm doing it now.

NP users: DON'T SEND SALES EMAILS TO NP MODS, TEAM LEADERS, OR TO ANY OTHER USER OF THIS FORUM UNLESS THEY SPECIFICALLY REQUEST IT!


I've heard complaints about this practice and I, personally, receive at least one a week. I received this about an hour ago:

hi,i am feisal said .a member of namepros and i was wondering if you are interested in the following domains.

Burbankaccomodation.com 50k

Burbankaccomodation.net 50k

Carliforniaaccomodation.net 5k

Carliforniaaccomodation.com 5k

My reply:

I wouldn't pay $1US for these worthless things. But good luck trying to sell them.

After I assumed that he'd understand that I wasn't interested, he sent me this:

hi
come on let get to the chase , if you are really interested we can work something out .no need to get scared of the price

My assumption was wrong, thus I spelled it out to him:

Why pay you an unrealistically large sum for your domains when I can hand-reg the .org, .info, .biz, .us etc. for reg fee? And now you'll go on a tirade about how ".com is king" without addressing the fact that if your domains were worth 1% of what you're asking for them, the terms would have been taken in every major extension by now.

I'm not interested.

And yet he still didn't get it:

i am aware that anyone can handregister the other extensions and that why i ma ready to compromise and hear your price.

Ugh the level of ignorance disturbs me. Or perhaps he is/was just desperate? Tools like this guy is why domainers are given a bad name.

People: Simply don't spam us with your domain lists. Are you not professionals?

*rolls eyes*

 

[Erdy]

It would be nice if vbulletin had a mark as spam feature for private messages.

I think the main problem is that it is extremely easy to create a new account and continue spamming for a determined spammer. Therefore something like SMS activation should be required to create NP accounts. Getting a new phone number is much harder than getting a new email account.

Sedo does SMS activation and they store the phone numbers. You can not activate another account with the same phone number. I think this is a very good way. However I'm sure NP management will not apply something like this because they would be worried that less people will register. But with a little programming SMS activation could be required once you want to send pm messages or post in the sales section.

 

[Archangel]

That's a good thing to bring up. But some members here will see a domain in the sig of another member, do a whois to get the member's email address and send their list that way (the above email exchange was from an actual email service, not PM). It's nearly impossible to prevent this, although ppl can use a private whois, I suppose. I don't think we mods or team leaders could penalize anyone for this but really, it looks like a seller is DESPERATE to shoot off emails to random ppl.

It would be nice if vbulletin had a mark as spam feature for private messages.

I think the main problem is that it is extremely easy to create a new account and continue spamming for a determined spammer. Therefore something like SMS activation should be required to create NP accounts. Getting a new phone number is much harder than getting a new email account.

Sedo does SMS activation and they store the phone numbers. You can not activate another account with the same phone number. I think this is a very good way. However I'm sure NP management will not apply something like this because they would be worried that less people will register. But with a little programming SMS activation could be required once you want to send pm messages or post in the sales section.

 

[Sparhawke]

Fair enough Arch Angel, if they refuse to listen to reason then simply cut short their ability to PM people for a period of time.

People who cannot use PM cannot use it to spam.

This is a big problem on all forums, especially those that are actively used to make money...and I really do not like the idea of SMS registration, I refuse to use a mobile phone so I get punished for it?

How about a "donation" of $1 to a charity of your choice through paypal, where only one account can be made ever?

Burbankaccomodation.com 50k

Burbankaccomodation.net 50k

Carliforniaaccomodation.net 5k

Carliforniaaccomodation.com 5k

The idiot doesn't even have the sense to realise that .com generally is 10x more expensive than .net

I understand that we all overvalue our own domains on occasion but who in their right mind on an internet forum is going mortgage their house for this crap??!

Now, had they asked 50k for wildlife.com or something, I might've been tempted. :p

 

[mitch007]

Archangel, Randy...I dont understand...He is spamming and you are a mod. Why engage in useless chatter with this guy when he is breaking NP rules? IMO, Slap 5-6 points on him and he will get the message to stop or he will be doing this again, over and over If I did this, with my record, I would be banned until middle 2011.

 

[Sparhawke]

Mitch, sometimes people do not understand what is going on and will ask for reasons why or clarification and I do it myself on occasion, but I do agree...if someone is just taking the piss then you have to pull them up short and let them know how it is.

I think Arch just made this topic though so when it happens next time there will be no excuses and he can get on with the fun times.

I know from experience how a forum can whine at the forum mods when they feel no warning is given for what should be obvious rules...he is just covering himself for the inevitable

 

[Erdy]

Fair enough Arch Angel, if they refuse to listen to reason then simply cut short their ability to PM people for a period of time.

This won't work because a determined spammer will open another NP account which is why we need and should have SMS activation.

 

[Archangel]

Fair enough Arch Angel, if they refuse to listen to reason then simply cut short their ability to PM people for a period of time.

People who cannot use PM cannot use it to spam.

This is a big problem on all forums, especially those that are actively used to make money...and I really do not like the idea of SMS registration, I refuse to use a mobile phone so I get punished for it?

How about a "donation" of $1 to a charity of your choice through paypal, where only one account can be made ever?



The idiot doesn't even have the sense to realise that .com generally is 10x more expensive than .net

I understand that we all overvalue our own domains on occasion but who in their right mind on an internet forum is going mortgage their house for this crap??!

Now, had they asked 50k for wildlife.com or something, I might've been tempted. :p

I think you hit the nail on the head.

Archangel, Randy...I dont understand...He is spamming and you are a mod. Why engage in useless chatter with this guy when he is breaking NP rules? IMO, Slap 5-6 points on him and he will get the message to stop or he will be doing this again, over and over If I did this, with my record, I would be banned until middle 2011.

The issue with this is that there is no real way to verify that the emails are sent by the user that he/she claims to be. If the spam is sent via PM, then it’d be easy to give an infraction & move on. But a lot of these ppl will do a whois on a domain they see in a member’s sig, take the email address listed, and shoot off their emails. I suppose we could compare the address used for the emails to the address in their NP profiles... but even this can be walked around.

Oh, I’m typically a fair guy. I was nice enough to reply as I had, showing no interest. After he apparently didn’t get the hint (and my flat-out saying that I wasn’t interested), I stopped replying to him.

I think Arch just made this topic though so when it happens next time there will be no excuses and he can get on with the fun times.

Pretty much. That and the fact that I’m irate (another sleepless night... I hate being an insomniac :p )

This won't work because a determined spammer will open another NP account which is why we need and should have SMS activation.

This is true but we mods can compare IPs and we actually delete many multiple accounts. But we don’t catch them all.

 

[mmmpi]

I’m always tempted to respond to that kind of whois spam with some snarky message detailing why the spammer is a moron, just wasted a reg fee etc etc, but invariably the thought of entering into a back and forth puts me off. I do however get a great laugh out of them, the last one was trying to sell me the .in of a pretty poor .us I got as part of a package. $500,000 he wanted LOL!

 

[Dirky47]

Thanks for the reminder. They might be a spammer. They deserve to have a warming.

 

[ledbeauty]

Yeah, maybe he is just a spammer. Ignore him. This is the best way to deal with this kind of thing.

 

[Eric]

SMS activation to register? Ridiculous :imho: With the changes I've implemented the past couple months, spam and spam accounts have significantly decreased, but there's no way to stop everything. Besides, this spammer didn't use vBulletin's PM or Email functions (afaik, Randy?).

 

[Erdy]

No, not to register but to post pm's, links and to add a signature. SMS is used by sedo to activate accounts. We have a sales section too. So if accounts had an SMS seal it would add one more layer to the trustworthiness of the member.

 

[namenut]

I dunno,

You guys seem a bit overly sensitive. Your in the domain industry. Your
contact information is your lifeline to sales yet your complaining about
a few email solicitations?

This smacks the same hypocrisy of a hot babe sitting at a bar and wants
only hot guys to hit on her otherwise it's harassment. If the contact
was for KillerDomain.com @ a great price you would buy the name and be
grateful the seller took the time to pitch you.

I just sent an email to RJ offering him a name for "Queen", because it's
perfect for her, so did I spam him? I think you all need to better define
a sales pitch -VS- spam. If your email is public then your only being
abusive in your position to relatiate.


The member you are quoting is a new member and I think I could set him
straight with one PM. No need to castrate a noob.

Randy I love you Bro but this is hyper critical. :imho:

NN

 

[Alex P]

I dunno,

You guys seem a bit overly sensitive. Your in the domain industry. Your
contact information is your lifeline to sales yet your complaining about
a few email solicitations?

This smacks the same hypocrisy of a hot babe sitting at a bar and wants
only hot guys to hit on her otherwise it's harassment. If the contact
was for KillerDomain.com @ a great price you would buy the name and be
grateful the seller took the time to pitch you.

I just sent an email to RJ offering him a name for "Queen", because it's
perfect for her, so did I spam him? I think you all need to better define
a sales pitch -VS- spam. If your email is public then your only being
abusive in your position to relatiate.


The member you are quoting is a new member and I think I could set him
straight with one PM. No need to castrate a noob.

Randy I love you Bro but this is hyper critical. :imho:

NN

I agree with NN, private whois all the way :blink:

 

[Archangel]

Besides, this spammer didn't use vBulletin's PM or Email functions (afaik, Randy?).

It was via email, not vBulletin, yeah.

I dunno,

You guys seem a bit overly sensitive. Your in the domain industry. Your
contact information is your lifeline to sales yet your complaining about
a few email solicitations?

This smacks the same hypocrisy of a hot babe sitting at a bar and wants
only hot guys to hit on her otherwise it's harassment. If the contact
was for KillerDomain.com @ a great price you would buy the name and be
grateful the seller took the time to pitch you.

I just sent an email to RJ offering him a name for "Queen", because it's
perfect for her, so did I spam him? I think you all need to better define
a sales pitch -VS- spam. If your email is public then your only being
abusive in your position to relatiate.


The member you are quoting is a new member and I think I could set him
straight with one PM. No need to castrate a noob.

Randy I love you Bro but this is hyper critical. :imho:

NN

Many ppl debate what is technically 'spam.' You are right in your assessment of sending a legit email to a person who might show true interest. But a random shot in the dark is a different beast. If someone had, let's say, archangel.com & they assumed I'd likely be interested (seeing as my screen name is Archangel), then yeah, I'd be thankful to have been sent the offer. But if there is no reason to assume I'd give one half a damn about Burbankaccomodation.com, then don't bother asking me if I want it. lol And if I say that I'm not interested, the seller shouldn't act like he has no idea what the word 'no' means & try to shove something down my throat that I could care less for. It's annoying and I know it happens to us all. But just because it happens doesn't make it right.

 

[namenut]

It was via email, not vBulletin, yeah.



Many ppl debate what is technically 'spam.' You are right in your assessment of sending a legit email to a person who might show true interest. But a random shot in the dark is a different beast. If someone had, let's say, archangel.com & they assumed I'd likely be interested (seeing as my screen name is Archangel), then yeah, I'd be thankful to have been sent the offer. But if there is no reason to assume I'd give one half a damn about Burbankaccomodation.com, then don't bother asking me if I want it. lol And if I say that I'm not interested, the seller shouldn't act like he has no idea what the word 'no' means & try to shove something down my throat that I could care less for. It's annoying and I know it happens to us all. But just because it happens doesn't make it right.

Very well said and perhaps your right. I just feel it's par for our chosen course. That and I know how passionate you are and think maybe you just let this dolt get under your skin ...

Don't let it bother you so much bro .... Your time is so much more valuable. Peace :wave:

PS
WTF made you think of "Burbankaccomodation.com" LOL .... :P I can't decide if it's actually a good name or not.....DOH! Maybe in the plural ....

Later bro

NN

 

[barefoottech]

My thought about SMS activation
A lot of NPers are NON US residents.
SMS calls to US from most other countries are very expensive.

 

[nielsencl]

Funny.

First, I found this thread because I was checking the posts made by someone who appeard to be making spam posts to get links to the site in their sig. Over the past week or two I have been seeing more and more of this and reported some of the posts which have been removed, but not the users. It seems we must report ALL the junk posts even though I have suggested mods look at the user's history to confirm they are just posting weak or bad posts for the links. I know this is off-topic a little, but I think it is related. If you look through this thread you may notice a post that does not contribute much. Check that user's posts and I think you will see a pattern.

The second thing that I was amused by is that if you check Estibot for "BurbankAccomodation.com" even they think the value is "0". So my question is, is this person on drugs or just 5 years old? I think the answer can be found in the WHOIS for the domain, and this type of activity is just more in the established tradition that is found in that part of the world.

I will admit that I AM over-sensitive to spam emails, and because I refuse to ignore it, I can still use my main email address that I started with back in 1999. The email address has been published on many, many sites, but with persistant spam reporting I have been able to keep the spam down to just a couple hundred a day (It used to be much, much worse). Now what I get mostly are fairly untouchable spammers or the worst kiddie spam that Spam Assassin picks up and filters for me. Sorting by subject makes it easy to scan and delete.

I generally report almost all "business" spam by companies and people but I get soft with those that are selling domains. Why? Well, I would never buy from a spammer for the most part. Yes, I might be tempted if something really valuable came along and was real cheap, but how often does that happen? So mostly I just report drop catchers like Tripod.uk, Itime (gone, but not forgotten), and those annoying kids that say they own a domain and want to sell it, but if you check WHOIS you see it's not even registered! I keep hoping they will send me something good, but I'm not holding my breath...

Anyway, I think I can send a SMS message with Google Voice, and I think there are sites where you can send a free SMS message, but I don't have a cellphone, so please take people like me into consideration. Google and some others are using a phone verification system now. The calls are short and should not be too expensive, maybe that would work?

 

[Archangel]

Good points, nielsencl. I asked the other mods to read your post. It might be of help to us.