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Spammer Profile: Scott Richter
Posted by
michael
on Tue Feb 03, 2004 04:23 PM
from the call-as-often-as-you-like-no-minimum-purchase dept.
from the call-as-often-as-you-like-no-minimum-purchase dept.
prostoalex writes "Westword.com published an article on Scott Richter, the owner of what is supposedly the nation's fastest-growing online marketing company, which mostly specialized in sending out those unsolicited electronic mail messages. Richter is the guy currently being sued by New York Attorney General and Microsoft Corporation for sending out nearly 9000 e-mails only to Hotmail accounts."
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Spam time! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Spam time! (Score:5, Informative)
Hey Andy! [slashdot.org] you take requests? http://www.optinbig.com/ [optinbig.com] unkay?
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Re:Spam time! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Spam time! (Score:5, Interesting)
No, get him with USPS junk mail. That's a whole lot more fun. =) It's been done before with the guy who was #1 at the time (Alan Ralsky or something like that, I beLIEve...)
Get his home address and have fun...
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PHONE NUMBER!! SPAM TIME!! :D (Score:4, Informative)
(303) 464-8164
N'joy!!
ps- Don't forget to ask if his penis is larger!!
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Re:PHONE NUMBER!! SPAM TIME!! :D (Score:5, Insightful)
For all I know Mr. AC could have posted his 'friends' phone number, got modded up as informative, and exploited the slashdot crowd to arrange a personal vendetta against some random bloke.
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Re:PHONE NUMBER!! SPAM TIME!! :D (Score:5, Informative)
Verification [optinbig.com]
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Re:OK (Score:5, Informative)
(article is at this URL):
http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/opinion_col
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Write your congress-critter! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Write your congress-critter! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now while we can argue about whether or not it's a bit excessive, I'm taking bets that the sudden and brutal death of, say, the top 20 US spammers would bring spam down to 1995 levels almost instantly.
In addition to the 20 cretins that we are rid of, the next 20 might also realize just who will be filling the freed-up slots, and a good part of them will move into something that resembles honest work.
Now for the "may be excessive" part:
Wars have been fought and thousands been killed for less.
Spammers commit a crime that is not very much realized in the modern world - they attack the common. They don't rob one guy a lot, they rob everyone a little. In other times, there would have been no hesitations to subject them to the most drastic penalties.
In fact, the death penalty should be modified for spammers to make sure it's slow and painful. A literal death by a thousand needle pricks might be very appropriate to the crime. Just pinch them once for every spam they sent.
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Obligatory bash.org quote... (Score:5, Funny)
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Know what I hate? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Know what I hate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Spammers have a different mindset from normal people.
They are trying to sell a product, but they usually tell lies in the subject field and/or the From line. Most of us wouldn't think "Hey, I want to sell to people, so I'll start out by making it clear that I'm lying to them and can't be trusted." But spammers think that way. And some people are apparently dumb enough to buy from them.
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New business? (Score:5, Interesting)
9000 spam emails doesn't sound like that much. An acquaintance of mine is the developer of si20 [si20.com] and there's more spam than 9000 in a measly half a day of operations.
Is this merely a symbolic legal pursuit? Or is this considered a lot of spam by the powers that be?
Re:New business? (Score:5, Interesting)
The basic theory here is to pick the low hanging fruit, and hopefully the others will back down out of fear. Not likely to happen that way, but that's the idea.
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Re:New business? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
Not true. [spamhaus.org] The vast majority of spammers are based in the US.
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Re:New business? (Score:5, Informative)
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OptInRealBig's policy (Score:5, Interesting)
It prohibits:
"Unsolicited promotions, advertising or solicitations (commonly referred to as "spam"), including, without limitation, commercial advertising and informational announcements, except to those who have explicitly requested such e-mails."
Hmmmm.....
His policy is Rule #1 compliant. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Fatal allergies? (Score:5, Funny)
Just wondering.
Booo! ... oh wait (Score:4, Funny)
Oh wait, he's spamming Microsoft Hotmail accounts? Oh hey man welcome back to the community!
He's #4 (Score:5, Informative)
Tired of the "fastest growing" statistic (Score:5, Insightful)
You see this in business news all the time. Brand X is the fastest growing company blah blah. Well, yeah. It's easy to see big growth numbers when you have three employees.
Never fails to amaze.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Never fails to amaze.... (Score:5, Insightful)
his a classic example of an oppurtunist that just doesn't care, just as long as he makes money. had he been from a different neighbourhood he would be pimpin or selling crack. " At 32, Richter's already spent nearly two decades chasing the Next Big Thing -- and finding it, the past few years, in cyberspace."
"The Pentagon had developed the cards as an intelligence tool, to be distributed to the troops. Richter saw them as the war souvenir the public had been waiting for. Within hours, his company was shooting out e-mails advertising the cards for sale -- more than 15 million e-mails, in fact. Richter moved 40,000 decks of the cards in a week, buying them for 89 cents each and selling them for $5.95. Yet at the time he started the blitz, he didn't have a single deck in stock. Nobody did.". find a product that's cool for stupid people and sell it through a medium that reaches the stupid people - kaching!
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The best part is... (Score:5, Funny)
...that you'll die sooner or later, and then you won't get any more spam.
Unless of course there's life after death, in which case you'll probably get spamned for all eternity.
This guy sounds like a real prize (Score:5, Informative)
Look at any major spammer's past... (Score:5, Interesting)
And it usually involves extortion, scam or theft. I wish the media would concentrate more on their criminal past. Maybe then people would get a clue and not do any business with them.
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Free Advertising (Score:4, Informative)
I can't believe I am saying this.... (Score:5, Funny)
I hope you win this one.
"The Internet Is Not Free" (Score:5, Interesting)
Says asshat: What people don't understand is that the Internet isn't free.
GOD I FUCKING HATE THESE PEOPLE!
Since when does this dickhead own the Internet? Since when is it "not free" as in "you owe me money"?
ARGH! I not only support the death penalty for these asshats, I think they need to deport this guy's goddamn family to central Cambodia.
The absolute contempt that these people have for all other living beings outside their small inner circles is so mind-numbingly infuriating that I can't even come up with a suitable rant against this guy. The absolute level of FURY that these moronic losers can invoke through their childish, imbecilic, self-centered "give it all to me" outlooks on life could never BEGIN to compare to the narcissism displayed by everyone in Hollywood COMBINED. NEVER HAVE I SO DESIRED TO POP SOMEONE'S HEAD LIKE AN OVERINFLATED BALLOON!
Re:"The Internet Is Not Free" (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:"The Internet Is Not Free" (Score:4, Funny)
"fucking pissed off, but right."
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Re:"The Internet Is Not Free" (Score:5, Funny)
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Jail... (Score:5, Insightful)
But according to him he's raking in the big bucks! He used to be fat, but now he's 240lbs! Hey, I wonder if he has a large penis now as well?
Point is, the article failed to mention the fact that he is still stealing resources from other ISP machines. While he claims that the Internet isn't free, and he's one of those good "internet marketer bulk emailers" and that all 40 million email addresses were opt-in, and that he's not one of those scummy "hard core spammers" and he honors all remove requests...
Spammers ALWAYS LIE!
He and Darl should get together sometime...
----
I know, this is probably redundant and has probably already been said... but I do hate when thieveses like this joker just keep getting away with spamming.... so the question is asked. Who is giving him the money to continue his "business" and how can we (or anyone) stop it?
I love these guys. (Score:5, Interesting)
Here we see a prime example of self-delusion and self-righteousness substituting for morality. Right, the Internet isn't free. But I didn't realize that I was paying Scott Richter to get online--I thought I was paying Verizon for DSL service.
It is entertaining to see how much these people hate Steve Linford [spamhaus.org] though.
It's really simple folks: if what you are doing is legit, why do you have to forge your headers? Why do you have to hide behind false email addresses? If it is legit, why do you have such a hard time getting legitimate ISPs to sell you bandwidth? Figure it out.
Contact Info (Score:5, Informative)
OptInRealBig, LLC is a limited liability corporation, with its principal place of business at 1333 W 120th Ave, Suite 101 Westminster, CO 80234.
Wonder if he is getting enough mail at is office? I would expect that a few additional catalogs would do alot to spruce up the place.
Re:Contact Info (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
spamming != marketing (Score:5, Insightful)
more information (Score:5, Informative)
Rule 1: Spammers lie Take a look at a few of his quotes here [google.com]
The article about him from the BBC is what scares me. "We are very excited [about the new CAN-SPAM law]," said Scott Richter, the president of OptInRealBig, an e-mail marketing firm in Westminster, Colo. "All of our clients had been worried about the California law. In the last two hours we have been booking a lot of orders for January."
This guy is the kind of guy that would piss in your pool. Now that he's got the internet, he gets to piss on millions of people at a time.
AngryPeopleRule [angrypeoplerule.com]
Slashdot Interview? (Score:5, Interesting)
How about it editors? (I tried suggesting an interview [slashdot.org] with a spammer before, but since I didn't have a name or contact information the editors didn't want to hear it. I wonder why I should do their job for them when they're the ones getting paid...)
The best line in the article is the last... (Score:5, Funny)
NO SOLICITING.
Bizarre Quote from article (Score:4, Interesting)
Thats right. Thanks to the spamlords its a cost-center for most firms transmitting and receiving this junk instead of a profit center.
Proof that spam works (sadly enough) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just Curious (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose you'd also favor chopping off someone's hand when they steal something?
An eye for an eye is not sound policy. We've got various laws against using your computer to create a nuisance for others, and they apply to us all, not just to spammers. I don't think I'd cry if any or all of the top ten spammers happened to be hit by a truck, but that doesn't mean I condone intentionally running them down.
This guy is finally getting at least some of what he deserves, which is a trial potentially followed by punishment under the law. If you can contribute evidence to support the charges against him, or bring new charges, then go for it. Otherwise, leave it be.
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Re:Will this last very long? (Score:5, Informative)
Your misconception is that the new federal law (which replaces all state laws, some of which had real teeth to them) is restrictive. The irony in the law being named CANSPAM, and it really is named CANSPAM, is not to be understated here. The law says that UCE must be labeled as such, but leaves it up to the sender to define how it is labeled.
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Re:surprise (Score:5, Funny)
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Size M@tters (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, but then he'll just take some herbal vi@gra and grow back to 6'1", because everyone knows it makes pricks get bigger.
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Re:getting worse (Score:5, Interesting)
What we need is a prosecutor looking to make a name for himself who is willing to do the homework to apply the existing anti-cracking laws (what is filter evasion, if not an attempt to circumvent computer security for the purpose of gaining prohibited access to other people's computer?)
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