On the heels of Internet Retailer suing EmailAppenders for allegedly trying to sell a bogus list of the publisher’s trade show attendees, yet another trade show operator is claiming its attendee list is being falsely represented.
Moreover, there is evidence the list-sales firm being accused of falsely representing the trade show operator’s list is related to the same India-based firm that evidence indicates is behind EmailAppenders.
Exhibitors in the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s HIMSS 2009 convention recently began receiving e-mails from a man claiming his name was Jack Wilson and holding himself out as a representative a company called OptInList.
The message was sent from JackW@OptInBmail.us.
According to experts, e-mail addresses that don’t match company names may be a sign that the sender is not legitimate. At the very least, it’s a sign the sender is unable to send e-mail from his company’s domain.
Wilson’s message claimed to offer the entire HIMSS list of 9,500 names for sale with e-mail addresses.
However, according to Karen Malone, vice president, meeting services, OptInList is not an authorized representative of HIMSS and can’t possibly have a real list of its conference attendees.
What’s more, OptInList is not the only firm pitching her exhibitors with bogus offers related to the HIMSS show.
“Our exhibitors get hit with a lot of groups trying to sell them our mailing list, which are generally bogus,” she said. “There’s no way they could get our attendee list. I don’t know where they could get it from.”
She said it’s possible a data firm could have lifted the attendee roster from past years but even then, it would be difficult to build an accurate list of conference attendees.
“Up until this year, we posted our attendee roster online,” she said. “But we did it with minimal fields so if someone really wanted to find out the data on our attendees, it would take them a heck of a lot of work to do it.”
She added HIMSS attendees were also getting spam from a company claiming to offer hotel-accommodations bookings. However, she said, the offer was a fraudulent attempt to get attendees’ credit card numbers.
She also said she has sent e-mails to attendees warning them of the allegedly fraudulent pitches.
A call to the number listed in Wilson’s e-mail reached a man who would only identify himself as “Jack.”
Jack claimed that the firm did not have the 2009 HIMSS attendee list, but had acquired previous years’ HIMSS attendee lists, appended e-mail addresses to them, and that those names were what OptInList was offering.
And, indeed, Wilson’s e-mail to HIMSS exhibitors did not claim the list was of 2009 attendees.
Jack also agreed that OptInList is not an authorized seller of HIMSS’s list.
He said he had received a phone call from HIMSS officials demanding that OptInList stop claiming to be selling HIMSS’s list.
Jack said his firm complied with the request.
However, Malone wrote in a follow-up e-mail exchange with this newsletter that HIMSS sent OptInList a cease-and-desist letter and that the company has failed to comply with it.
“Our exhibits manager (Elli Riley) said they did not stop based on our cease-and-desist letter,” wrote Malone. “They continue to contact our exhibitors.”
When asked by e-mail if HIMSS was considering legal action, she answered: “Do not think so since they vaporize once the chase is on.”
Meanwhile, though Jack denied his company was related to EmailAppenders or another firm based in India, he confirmed his company’s address was 2370 Market Street in San Francisco.
A firm called EventGain located at EventGain.net—notice the .net—lists the 2370 Market Street address as its U.S. headquarters.
According to anti-spam outfit Spamhaus’s Registry of Known Spam Operations, EventGain.com—notice the .com—at one time was operated by India-based Data Champions/Sloan Marketing.
EventGain.com no longer works. It is possible EventGain.com and EventGain.net are unrelated but that seems unlikely.
According to Spamhaus, Data Champions/Sloan Marketing has also operated EmailAppenders.com, EmailAppenders.com no longer works. However, EmailAppendersWeb.com is home to EmailAppenders, a firm that is in multiple disputes with marketers who claim it sold them bogus e-mail lists.
EmailAppenders is also being sued by Internet Retailer for allegedly offering a bogus list of its annual conference attendees for sale.
