I don’t know if I should pity Bob Richards, but I guess if you play with fire, you might get burnt. Anyway, Bob Richards purchased a list from a company called EmailAppenders and paid some $14,000… Yes, you see that right: $14,000 for 100,000 supposedly targeted email addresses.
The story goes that after being pleased with himself for getting such a good list, cleaning it up and doing the sending, he got 85,000 bounces and his server got locked up. The company that helped him send out his emails got its account canceled, and now Richards believes he has been ripped off and is hell-bent on getting back at EmailAppenders.
Do not, I can’t emphasize this enough, do not ever purchase a list from anyone, even if they claim they have permission for every single email address in the list. These email addresses are usually taken without the owner’s knowledge or permission. Yes, the sellers can claim they called the owners and verified the emails, but do you know what they actually asked them? Do you think they called them and said this:
“Hello Mr. So and So, I’m calling from a company that sells your email address to people who are stupid enough to buy it. Can you verify if this is your email address so that I can sell it and make money out of it? And yes, your email account will be flooded with spam.”
And do you think the email address owner would say:
1) “Oh yes, that is my email address, please sell it and give me the spam. Don’t worry, I think my free anti-spam software can block those spam emails.”
or
2) “How the %#%* did you get that email address? If you use it, I’m going to sue you!”
Anyone want to make a guess?
I just can’t think of anyone in the right state of mind who would give you his email address so you could profit from it.
Would you?