Normally I don’t mention names in my blog entries, but this time it warrants it. A while I ago, I was contacted by someone at Networking One South Florida (http://www.networkingonesoflorida.com/) by the name of Don C. Meyer.

After some discussion about his websites being redesigned, he offered me a membership in his Network One South Florida and Dining Entertainment Club networking groups. About a week into it, I started receiving mailings for networking parties and requests to join his affiliate program for Networking One South Florida, Spring Break South Florida, and Dining Entertainment Club. I never utilized either because I became too busy and it seemed that Mr. Meyer couldn’t get himself situated.

Many times I just disregarded the messages, however, after about 3 months of being on the list, I found I had been subscribed to yet another list for a singles cruise and another from an adult club in south Florida. I didn’t catch it at the time, but Mr. Meyer used the ‘Cc’ field to send out his newsletter.

I only figured it out because one of the mailings looked suspiciously like his Networking One South Florida mailing list. So I checked the headers, and sure enough both of the new mailings were sent by people on Don C. Meyer’s email list.

I emailed Mr. Meyer to remove my email address from his newsletter twice before I went ahead and forwarded his message to AOL’s abuse department and his response? He took a sarcastic tone and asked how he got my email address?

Because of his email list, my email address was exposed to over 100 other strangers (over 200 if you count the other email lists I found myself subscribed to), 2 (possibly more) were unscrupulous enough to mine it and place my personal email address on their mailing lists. And not surprisingly, the number of spam messages I received to the account increased.

In nearly 2 years, I barely received a total of 5 spam message (yes, in that entire two year time frame) - however, after being on Mr. Meyer’s email list, the number of spam increased to about 5 per day. That may not be much to some people, but it’s a large enough increase to be noticeable and it can easily be traced back to Don Meyer’s list.

After I responded and let Mr. Meyer know about the fact that he violated the email privacy of his entire list and that if someone requests to be removed, they should be promptly removed without question, he responded with:
You are unsubscribed. Get a life!

Polite huh? I would never, in a million years, take that tone with any of my clients or email list subscribers and if you run a website, email list, or business - you probably shouldn’t either.

I would never do business with someone like that or recommend them to anyone. So, take a lesson from Mr. Don C. Meyer, treat everyone you come across with respect.

At this point, I wish I’d never met Mr. Meyer or heard of Networking One South Florida, because it would mean I wouldn’t have any spam and I wouldn’t have to deal with rude people.

Okay, I’ve finished ranting. Thank you for listening. But am I wrong for being pissed?