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Two years spent spamming spammers back

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Re: Two years spent spamming spammers back

#61

Post by xenadu02 »

dingaling wrote: post #33
6502nerdface wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never thought of that, good call. They presumably pay for the reply postage, reducing their ROI.

Just remember to tear-off anything that looks personally identifiable ( address, reference numbers etc ). There used to be a trick in the UK of attaching reply envelopes to bricks and putting them back into the postal system, hoping that the spammer would be charged by weight, but Royal Mail put an end to that.

Slightly OT but that's because one of the biggest customers of postal services are direct marketers. By sending a brick you're abusing the system and harassing the real customers.

Re: Two years spent spamming spammers back

#62

Post by ryanlol »

grecy wrote: post #53
timbowhite wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you being serious? > I wonder what these people think about you If they're acting at all as GP described, then it's obvious they see you as another mark to aggressively try to extract money from. Caring about what some bothersome strangers think about you and where you're from takes a distant backseat to standing up to aggression.

> Are you being serious? I am. I'm the guy who wrote the story, maybe I did a bad job. It's not like they're getting violent or "trying to extract money from me" - jeez, when you do buy something you can just hold out a handful of money and they'll take the right amount - extremely, extremely honest. In reality, they're just trying to sell their stuff, I don't understand why someone would react by yelling and getting…

>In reality, they're just trying to sell their stuff, I don't understand why someone would react by yelling and getting angry.

In that case what you're doing seems to be significantly worse than saying "fuck off".

Maliciously wasting their time vs making it clear you aren't interested?

FWIW, I don't think there's anything wrong with what you're doing. I just think it's objectively worse than "yelling and getting angry".

Re: Two years spent spamming spammers back

#64

Post by halomru »

codingdave wrote: post #55

Sure, great idea, funny and clever and all that. But I disagree with the idea that inboxes are sacred, and disagree with the attitude of "how dare people send marketing to me!" Fraudulent spam is one thing. Plain old marketing or sales cold calls, though... you know people are going to do it. It is their job. And I'd much rather get emails than I can quickly delete and ignore vs. phone calls. And once in a while, som…

>sales cold calls, though... you know people are going to do it. It is their job.

Sales cold calls are illegal in my country and happen to me once every few years. My email address isn't so lucky.

>Sure, junk mail is annoying and most of it gets thrown out.

And more importantly: I can put a simple "no advertisements" sign on my real mailbox and cut down junk to almost zero. I wish I could do that to my virtual inbox.

Email junk is far worse than any real-live equivalent in my culture.

A better metaphor is having my business and private conversations while walking over a Middle-Eastern market where random people try to sell me stuff.

Re: Two years spent spamming spammers back

#65

Post by the_duke »

maksimum wrote: post #58
the_duke wrote: post #44

Hilarious idea. But one of the first things I would have coded is preventing the same message to be sent again. The examples are full of that.

You could consider repeat messages as adding insult to injury. For example you can see in the 24-message conversation with the SEO company, that repeat messages seem to aggravate the spammers.

Good point, I hadn't thought about that.

Re: Two years spent spamming spammers back

#67

Post by dmoy »

dhimes wrote: post #19
hackbinary wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I tend to take spam phone calls for double glazing and PPI. I talked to a guy for an hour once. My strategy to be the affable fool.

Tom Mabe did this and recorded it- released a hilarious cd

Is that the guy with the fake crime scene?

Re: Two years spent spamming spammers back

#68

Post by huehehue »

grecy wrote: post #27

> Imagine if this type of thing happened in real-life. You walk out the door in the morning and you’re immediately attacked by Parul, Kevin, and Amelie. I laughed out loud at this, because it's exactly what I'm experiencing now in West Africa. Street vendors are aggressive about selling whatever they have, and they seem to assume I want it - almost like I owe it to them to buy it - I'm not sure if it's because I'm Wh…

If you've ever been to NYC, this is pretty much the tour bus ticket salesmen. Some will follow you from behind with their arms outstretched in front of your face, flashing tour bus tickets.

After a particularly stressful day, one guy decides to take it upon himself to follow me like that for the better part of a city block. Ignoring him wasn't working, so I (honestly quite gently) brushed his hand out of my face, and the guy goes off, threatening to call the police and pulling in bystanders, asking if they just witnessed the terrible assault I've committed.

I guess the moral of the story is, don't work near Times Square.

Re: Two years spent spamming spammers back

#69

Post by [deleted] »

enraged_camel wrote: post #59
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it works. Its simply experimenting with different reactions until achieving the desired effect. I want to communicate disinterest in buying from street vendors. I try various forms/styles of communication until I accomplish my goal. I've had this problem in the USA, and merely looking unfriendly is often sufficient. In your situation, that's clearly inadequate.

>>Because it works. So does spam. That's why spammers keep sending it. Does that mean it's OK? Clearly not.

[deleted]
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