I received some spam from MyShopper.net today. The email came from a MyShopper.net representative of sorts, and states that I ordered something from Factorydirectdeals.net. They would like me to call them to take a survey, yada, yada, yada.
First, I never ordered anything from Factorydirectdeals.net and I never would... their products and web site appear to be crap which makes me highly suspicious of the company in the first place.
Second, the inclusion of a phone number in the email led me to believe they really want to get me on the phone. Possibly to try some telemarketing of some sort, or to confirm my email address is good, or even to try to get personal info from me (credit card number for instance) in some sort of fraud scheme.
When I realized these two things, I did a little research. I find that the FactoryDirectDeals web site is run by In USA Group, Inc. which also runs some other relatively low class shopping web sites. (ShippingOnly.com and ThankUGift.com to name a couple.) Then I recognize a couple of these sites as "Trusted Retailers" on MyShopper.net's web site. This really got my "bullshit-o-meter" revving.
On the web site for In USA Group, Inc, I found this scathing statement on the use of spam as well as this revision. Interesting... very interesting.
But wait... there's more!!! MyShopper.net has a link in the top of their shopping sites list, linking to the National Consumers Alliance. This entity purports to be "America's foremost consumer organization" dealing with consumer rights and advocacy issues. Supposedly, they provide the consumer with discounts and consumer information. Then the kicker... I realize that the 1-888 number in the email is almost identical to the 1-888 number on NCA's web site except for the last two digits. Which probably means the two companies (MyShopper and NCA) are run from the same offices. A little more research reveals it: In USA Group, Inc and National Consumers Alliance are based in the same exact office. 9165 Roe Street in Pensacola Florida. All three companies are based in the same offices.
So, a spam email arrived for me, stating I had ordered something from FactoryDirectDeals.net and that I should call MyShopper.net for a survey. I had not ordered anything (which they know), and the purpose was just to get me to call them. Unfortunately for them, I did research. I plan to call MyShopper.net posing as a gullible citizen to see what they try to do to me. Then I'll call NCA and confront them about their connection with MyShopper.net and the spam I received. Spam from a third party company designed as a front to drum up business for the NCA which is supposed to help the consumer trust online businesses. Priceless!
Stay tuned for more when I get them on the phone Monday!
(UPDATE - 10 minutes later:
AHA! NCA involved in fraud. And I'm going to clue thewriter of this article in to what I found about the NCA as well. )
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Ugh. USDA Stands by Mad Cow Detection System: "meat from cows that were too sick or injured to stand or walk unassisted would continue to be allowed to be sold for human consumption". That just makes you wonder doesn't it?
Monday, December 29, 2003
I agree with this article: PowerPoint is dangerous. There are two reasons why I believe this:
1) People tend not to listen to the speaker when a PowerPoint presentation is there. They tend just to stare at the presentation and only take in the points included within.
2) Speakers tend to spend more time on the PowerPoint presentation than what its worth. If an outline were provided to the attendees, the result would be the same and hours wouldn't have been spent on a useless PowerPoint slide show.
I know this from personal experience, both as an speaker and as an attendee. I just recently worked on developing part of a completely new computer system for the company I work for. After it was implemented, a lot of the developers had to give training sessions to the other programmers who were to maintain the system. I sat in some others' sessions before getting mine together, and found that the maintenance programmers weren't paying hardly any attention to the speaker. They were all staring blankly at printed PowerPoint presentations and idly making notes now and again. I didn't use PowerPoint, so most of my attendees stayed awake, took good notes, and I'm hoping the subject sank in better.
1) People tend not to listen to the speaker when a PowerPoint presentation is there. They tend just to stare at the presentation and only take in the points included within.
2) Speakers tend to spend more time on the PowerPoint presentation than what its worth. If an outline were provided to the attendees, the result would be the same and hours wouldn't have been spent on a useless PowerPoint slide show.
I know this from personal experience, both as an speaker and as an attendee. I just recently worked on developing part of a completely new computer system for the company I work for. After it was implemented, a lot of the developers had to give training sessions to the other programmers who were to maintain the system. I sat in some others' sessions before getting mine together, and found that the maintenance programmers weren't paying hardly any attention to the speaker. They were all staring blankly at printed PowerPoint presentations and idly making notes now and again. I didn't use PowerPoint, so most of my attendees stayed awake, took good notes, and I'm hoping the subject sank in better.