I’ve been getting this nonsense for months. Please Independent and Independent on Sunday, protect my personal information and sort out your spamming advertising sales people. Here’s the current unsolicited spam email:
Hi there,I’ll get straight to the point. One of my regular advertisers in The Independent on Sunday New Review Magazine has had to cancel their advertising and I wondered whether Tom-Watson fancied stepping in and grabbing a seriously good deal?
The issue in question is 6th July and the rate has been reduced from £600 to just £243. The ad slot is a single panel (57mm x 57mm) and it appears on our extremely response-orientated Web Windows page.
The readership for The Independent on Sunday New Review Magazine is a massive 670,000 and is well known as being a paper which brings advertisers a great response. Its young professional readership have a high disposable income and spend more online than the readers of any other Sunday paper.
This isn’t our only page closing this week and we also have deals available in other titles including The Sunday Times. Please call me on 020 7649 9712 for more details.
Best regards,
Russell
020 7649 9712
www.webwindows.co.uk
5 comments ↓
Yuck. The Independent.
It’s sadly a way of life Tom. I came home to this even though i have spam protection on:
“Dear Winner,This e-mail is to inform you that you have been selected as a winner for a cash prize of £850,000.00 on our ONLINE SWEEPSTAKES PROMOTION program which was held on Friday, 20th of June, 2008 in Liverpool, United Kingdom. To file your claim, do contact our fiduciary agent assigned to your file via email as given in the contact details below providing your Full Name; Address: Country: Age: Gender: Occupation: Telephone Number: and your Winning Number: 08.11.21.32.35.42. {47} to commence the process of releasing your cash prizeContact Person: Brian AdamsE-mail: uknl.claimdepartmnt@hotmail.co.ukContact Number: +447031947860″
It isn’t the Indy that’s spamming you. Webwindows is a well-known bunch of borderline scammers (I say borderline, because what they do is currently legal even though it’s entirely disreputable) who buy advertising space in the major newspapers and then resell it to unsuspecting punters at a vastly inflated price. Their method of reeling in aforementioned narks is to scrape websites for contact addresses and then spam them.
At the risk of appearing to blow my own trumpet, I’ve posted a more detailed blog entry on these lowlife at http://mark.goodge.co.uk/musings/80/webwindows-spammers-and-rip-off-merchants
Thanks Mark, but surely webwindows are known the the advertising sales people on these newspapers?
I’m sure that the various advertising departments of the newspapers that Webwindows buy space in are aware of them. But, realistically, they’re not going to refuse to sell space to them. It’s not their job to police the activities of all of their customers (well, maybe it ought to be, but that’s another issue), and space resellers are an established part of the advertising business. So it’s not really the fault of the newspapers that they have at least one dodgy reseller.
What’s probably more relevant is that sending unsolicited bulk email (aka spam) to individuals (as opposed to businesses) is illegal in the UK. Now, the last time I looked, I was an individual rather than a corporate entity, and the fact that I run a number of hobby websites doesn’t change that. That makes their email to me illegal. Equally, I don’t think being an MP counts as running a business (at least, not until they bring back the rotten boroughs), so their mail to you was illegal as well. So why haven’t they had a visit from the local boys in blue, yet?
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