Getting spammed LSN adverts by FraudRecord?

[fixidixi]

It would have been a clever move by LSN, buy the network that comes pre-equipped with hosts contact details and permission to spam, get their adverts in front of every admin on WHMCS on a daily basis.

I wouldnt call that clever: spamming admins is.. bold.. at least here once i see a services that i had seen in spam im definately going to ignore it without checking further into it. thats a no-go for me...

Good point.  Complaining about small things with a free service with no real alternatives is kind of pointless.

Man I also see your point but get this:

If its a free service.. then it should be free.. if they cant handle the workload then they should send a notification stating the situtation, and the options. or even telling you that well we are going to send newsletters from now on as a source of income. if you want/need/are interested : read on if not [uNSUB,CANCEL whetever] here..

and then after you've notified and gave ppl a chance to decide if they want to use your service, read your ads and stuff then its ok to send stuff to them. But i think its NOT OK like this.

Think about it: what would happen if every single service you've ever signed up for for free would send you 1 spam monthly....

I think its morally wrong to tell ppl something and when the situation changes do whatever you want without fair warning..

 

[DomainBop]

Its gone fully commercial, just license it for $20 p/month everyone will pay, problem solved.

$20 is more than the monthly profit of the average summer host (or the current crop of "DDOS protected, RAID1" OVH resellers or the average underage host who isn't old enough to enter into a contract) so the number of providers using it would likely decrease substantially if he started charging...

Two suggestions I would make is that: #1 Harzem setup a separate email list for sending adverts like this (a closed loop opt-in list as required by WiredTree's AUP) so in the future he could avoid having people opening "I got spammed by FR" threads, and #2 Harzem should report himself to FR for this LSN mailblast incident.

 

[AnthonySmith]

I don't understand the argument @KuJoe its already receiving money.

I agree it has saved me a lot of stress, but I remember the initial discussion years ago that kicked the whole thing off, even back then the idea of charging for more than the minimum amount of API calls was widely accepted, and most people fully expected to pay for this.

The way I see it is: Here is some regular money, use it as you wish, stop pushing LSN adverts in my face, if you don't want to profit then that is also fine, transparently support a charity with anything left over, everyone wins and SPAM finally has a good outcome.

 

[KuJoe]

I spoke with Harzem and that should be the last ad via e-mail he expects to send out.


We'll be signing up for a sponsorship shortly and I hope others will also to help support the cause.

 

[AnthonySmith]

Perhaps a bulk email with this link: http://www.fraudrecord.com/report-manager/index.php?action=become-sponsor would have helped I had no idea it existed, the first "news" letter I get is an LSN advert, bit backwards but OK we all make bad decisions I have made my fair share for sure, I will sign up as a sponsor as well.

 

[Nett]

Heh...sign up an account with one of Spamhaus's honey pot emails and get the IPs blacklisted.

 

[WSWD]

I received the spam as well.  This comes after the suspicious post herer a while back in which Limestone was asking about FraudRecord, yet they were already a "sponsor". 

Would not surprise me if Limestone is more than just a sponsor.  Just a gut feeling that there is something more going on than meets the eye.

 

[Wintereise]

Heh...sign up an account with one of Spamhaus's honey pot emails and get the IPs blacklisted.

There's no need to be a dick, it's an useful service that I'm sure most of us enjoy using.

 

[LimestoneNetworks]

Hello Guys,

I was just notified of this thread. Just for your information, I didn't know that people had not opted-in for this email. While we're grateful for the various ad opportunities Harzem has provided us, we apologize for any inconvenience it has caused.

Sincerely,

Greg

 

[Licensecart]

Wow! One email from a free service and people pull a big fuss over it. Man let's hope he does charge for FR then people wouldn't have it and then complain, but like someone said here you'd complain that it charges you now to use it.

Can never please some people. I bet the people who are complaining haven't signed up to HostingCon newsletters.

 

[BlaZe]

I got it too but its just an email advert. They do have the right to earn money right ? If you are bothered about the spam email then just don't use their service ?

 

[addressnode]

The resources used to run this are minimal, I don't see why ad's are needed at all.

 

[KuJoe]

The resources used to run this are minimal, I don't see why ad's are needed at all.

Care to share what the resources used for the project are? If you can also fill us in on the size of the DDOS attacks they received this week it would also be appreciated so I can stop checking the logs.

 

[Flapadar]

$20 is more than the monthly profit of the average summer host (or the current crop of "DDOS protected, RAID1" OVH resellers or the average underage host who isn't old enough to enter into a contract) so the number of providers using it would likely decrease substantially if he started charging...

Two suggestions I would make is that: #1 Harzem setup a separate email list for sending adverts like this (a closed loop opt-in list as required by WiredTree's AUP) so in the future he could avoid having people opening "I got spammed by FR" threads, and #2 Harzem should report himself to FR for this LSN mailblast incident.

Mind you, the kiddie hosts are going to mostly be the ones listing people as fraud because they left a bad review. Thing would probably be better without them. 

 

[Joshua-Epic]

What is happening here is LSN is paying for an advertisement service through Fraudrecord. In addition, I can almost guarantee Fraud record is getting some sort of affiliate kickback. The forum post previously referenced was one that I had created on Fraudrecord forums and to this day have yet to receive any sort of attention from the owner. In addition to this, due to the emailing practices involved, one of our brands have been contemplating whether or not to pull our sponsorship for FraudRecord. 

 

[KuJoe]

What is happening here is LSN is paying for an advertisement service through Fraudrecord. In addition, I can almost guarantee Fraud record is getting some sort of affiliate kickback. The forum post previously referenced was one that I had created on Fraudrecord forums and to this day have yet to receive any sort of attention from the owner. In addition to this, due to the emailing practices involved, one of our brands have been contemplating whether or not to pull our sponsorship for FraudRecord. 

You do know that removing the advertisement is extremely easy and Harzem even said he's ok with removing the ads if you don't want to see them in your WHMCS.

As for the "emailing practices involved", this was a single e-mail which will be the last according to Harzem. If he does send another e-mail then there's something to discuss but so far Harzem hasn't given me any reason to distrust him.

 

[Joshua-Epic]

Removing the code is indeed easy as its only a simple line or two of coding in the addon. Still, from past experience, I highly doubt it will be the last email to be sent however I do hope I am wrong. We shall wait and see I suppose. 

 

[drmike]

Mind you, the kiddie hosts are going to mostly be the ones listing people as fraud because they left a bad review. Thing would probably be better without them. 

Has someone come across this situation with Fraudrecord and an ongoing issue or just a nagging suspicion?

 

[Joshua-Epic]

Has someone come across this situation with Fraudrecord and an ongoing issue or just a nagging suspicion?

I honestly can't imagine this as an issue. While "kiddie" hosts do use Fraud Record, more established hosting companies such as the ones you see on their sponsors list contribute significantly. I know throughout our network, our verifications team is instructed to utilize the system for reporting problematic customers as a courtesy to other hosting companies. 

 

[KuJoe]

Removing the code is indeed easy as its only a simple line or two of coding in the addon. Still, from past experience, I highly doubt it will be the last email to be sent however I do hope I am wrong. We shall wait and see I suppose. 

Harzem is welcome to lie to me, but I've seen the size of the DDOS attacks the site receives so it's not in his best interest if he wants our support. Heck, I don't care about the newsletters but he has to be straight with me so hopefully he is especially since this project only works if there's trust for all parties involved.