Readers and colleagues occasionally forward me e-mails from vendors pitching them on buying e-mail lists. They want to know if the messages look like they’re from legitimate vendors.
So far, without exception the answer has been “no.”
This isn’t to say all e-mail list pitches are shady. The ones that reach me have already been determined by readers to look fishy, after all, so they’re certainly not a representative sample of the market.
This is to say, however, that there are a lot of shady characters pitching direct marketers on e-mail lists, and enough marketers are apparently responding to make it worth the shady vendors’ while.
And some of the pitches are so obviously shady, it’s a wonder anyone bites. But apparently they do.
For example, a colleague last week forwarded an e-mail from BuyEmailData.com carrying the subject line: “Market to the Masses – Wholesale Email Data.”
Wholesale e-mail data? Anyone with even half their wits about them should see that phrase as the e-mail marketing equivalent of: “Two-day-old sushi.”
There is no such thing as legitimate wholesale e-mail data.
The next warning signal came with the price: $499 for the entire U.S. or $99 per state.
What the heck does that even mean?
“We provide the largest amount of e-mail data for the price, over 48 Million general consumers nationwide!” said sales copy in the pitch. “The possiblilities [typo theirs] are endless with this enormous data package.”
To get an idea of how ridiculously low BuyEmailData.com’s prices are, according to a recent e-mail to this newsletter from David Kanter, president of AccuList, legitimately sourced e-mail lists are generally not sold for unlimited usage.
Also, legitimately sourced consumer e-mail lists average around $80 per thousand names, according to Kanter. So let’s see: If Kanter is accurate—and there’s no reason to believe he’s not—48 million legitimately sourced addresses should cost $3.84 million. Of course, that figure doesn’t take into account volume discounts, so BuyEmailData.com’s pricing may be off by just $3.5 million or so.
Other warning signals with BuyEmailData.com are the lack of contact information on the Web site and lack of information about the company’s executive leadership.
Also, BuyEmailData.com’s e-mail pitch lists the company’s address as P.O. Box 442, Chicago, IL, 60606.
Not that legitimate firms don’t ever operate out of post office boxes, but P.O. boxes in prospecting pitches should be viewed with suspicion.
Even more suspicious, a WhoIs lookup—a tool that lists the contact information Web site registrants supply—reveals the domain BuyEmailData.com is registered through Domains By Proxy, a company people use when they want their contact information kept private.
Do legitimate firms use Domains By Proxy? Sure. But the needle on the fishiness meter has just ticked up significantly further.
Next up: a sample data file. BuyEmailData.com offers one so I downloaded it.
To be honest, as I was downloading the file I was thinking: “This isn’t going to tell me anything. The sample names will be pristine. If things were to go awry, it would be when the purchase was made.”
Boy was I wrong.
Here are three records from the sample file of 13:
E-mail Address Name Address
dfllksdlksd@aol.com, Mas Samda, 1234 kedlkwe, Lkskadlks, AK, 10000
AB@comcast.net, Heavy Lifter, 123 Easy St. NE; Nome; AK, 10258
joebull@yahoo.com, Joseph Bulloney, 123 happy street, Pleasantville, AK, 10203
I e-mailed dfllksdlksd@aol.com and, not surprisingly, my message bounced.
As for the second record, 10258 is a New York City zip code. Nome, AK’s zip is 99762.
And it’s pretty obvious the third record is, well, baloney.
Moreover, all 13 records carried New York City zip codes and listed Alaska as their state of residence.
I’m not publishing the other records because some of the names and e-mail addresses look like they might be those of real people.
In any case, this is BuyEmailData.com’s sample file? It sure doesn’t bode well for the quality of BuyEmailData.com’s product.
The only question left is: Who’s buying this stuff?
