Posted by JanetK_CA on 3/19/09 12:53am
Msg #281307

The spammers are coming out of the woodwork again

Just got this a little while ago:

**********************************

Dear Notary,

Please join www.ZZZZZZZZZZZZ.com. ZZZZZZZZZZZZ.com
is the nationwide notary directory. Join Basic membership which is free and Primiur Membership which is $9.99. Please logon to www.ZZZZZZZZZZZZ.com and
see the benefit of Premier membership.

Also we can send you the blank Notary flyer. You can
fill in your Notary information and send the flyer to your
Notary clients to get more visibility & earnings. Please send
the E-Mail at [e-mail address] for Notary blank flyer.

Also if you want to become Real Estate Agent please let
us know we will help you free for how to prepare for Real Estate
exam or please refer to us Real Estate customer.


Sincerely,

**********************************

the only thing I changed was the website and email address, for obvious reasons. Wow!! This one sure makes me want to pluck down my $9.99 - NOT! OK, this one isn't a lot of money, but I'm not even going to bother seeing if the website is for real on this one.

To those who are relatively new, before you decide to spend money advertising somewhere, do some investigating first. What would you search for in your area if you needed a notary? Figure out what most people would enter, then try out the major search engines to see what comes up. If you don't see it there, neither will any potential clients! There are a gazillion others like this out there. I'll bet most of you have other things you can do with an extra $10 or $20 or $40 - or whatever... Most of these sites are a waste of money, but many fall for it and they clean up. Others are well worth the investment. You judge for yourself.

Just my $.02 on the subject.

Reply by mmjosey on 3/19/09 1:00am
Msg #281309

Janet,
To be honest I don't spend any money on websites other than the National Notary Association. I would tell newcomers not to spend any money on website as a lot of them are run by signing agencies that went out of business (a lot for not paying their bills) and have come up with a new ideal to take your hard earned money. Use all the free websites and be careful who you take jobs from!!!

Reply by Marian_in_CA on 3/19/09 1:09am
Msg #281311

Many will argue that spending money with the NNA is also a waste.

It is NOT a waste, however if you spend it here at NotRot, and a couple of other places... I can only think of 3 other seriously viable places.

The majority of my calls come from this website and one of the other 3.

I do get calls from my NNA profile, enough that it paid for the cost of the membership/BGC several times over, but other than that, the NNA has been useless to me, if not completely annoying.

All of these emails I get I promptly delete. They're not even worth the trouble of reading. They're such scammers, it's ridiculous. In fact, not long ago I found one that is actually using NotRot's logo... and is STILL using it. I feel bad that people actually decided to sign up at their site. Complete waste.

Reply by Sylvia_FL on 3/19/09 6:50am
Msg #281325

As a signing service the only sites I check out for a signing agent are Notary Rotary and the Signing Registry. The NNA website is only a last resort. I can count on one hand the number of times I have had to use the NNA's signing agent site in the last 6 years.

Reply by BrendaTx on 3/19/09 8:38am
Msg #281333

*To be honest I don't spend any money on websites other than the National Notary Association. I*

My opinion is different on the NNA that yours; that to spend money there

(1) might get you lots of work (all I ever got referred from there were low/ss/sad-pay little jobs; and

(2) it might also help to fund the very ad campaign that will diminish your business by adverstising, "Yes, you too can be a loan signer and make $---.00 a year." which has significantly lowered the experience, knowledge and wisdom of notaries in this business by a great deal.

Many *good* people have come to this business by "teachers" of "how to" class packages but many lazy and/or uninformed have as well.

I long ago dropped my membership at the NNA as a practical matter and as a protest against their "anyone should/could/would be able to do this" marketing with MY so-called member dollars.

My opinion. I'm entitled to it.

Reply by CaliNotary on 3/19/09 2:17pm
Msg #281388

"I long ago dropped my membership at the NNA as a practical matter and as a protest against their "anyone should/could/would be able to do this" marketing with MY so-called member dollars."

I never had a membership with them, and I never would for exactly the same reason. I'm actually shocked that so many people on this site continue to give this wretched organization money, even though they're completely aware of what they've done to the signing agent industry. They probably would have sent money to Hitler in 1939 if they thought they could make a few bucks off of it.

Reply by JanetK_CA on 3/19/09 4:54pm
Msg #281411

Very well put, Brenda!!

"(2) it might also help to fund the very ad campaign that will diminish your business by adverstising, "Yes, you too can be a loan signer and make $---.00 a year." which has significantly lowered the experience, knowledge and wisdom of notaries in this business by a great deal."

I think this hits at the heart of so much opposition to them. Sending them money is like shooting yourself in the foot, imo. Thanks for spelling it out so well.

Reply by MW/VA on 3/19/09 9:06am
Msg #281336

It's call free enterprise & marketing. Most of those ads have a place at the bottom to unsubscribe. I don't get many, but I don't want to be on their lists.

Reply by CaliNotary on 3/19/09 2:15pm
Msg #281387

"Most of those ads have a place at the bottom to unsubscribe"

Which you should absolutely ignore. Odds are that all you're doing is telling them that yes, this is a valid email address so please sell it to everyone you know.

Reply by BrendaTx on 3/19/09 2:18pm
Msg #281390

I never unsubscribe through an email...I just

set up spam traps for it. Otherwise...like you said, Cali.

Reply by LKT/CA on 3/19/09 2:28pm
Msg #281392

I always unsubscribe through emails....

....and have never had a problem getting other spammed ads. My spam blocker is set to high anyway.

Reply by MW/VA on 3/19/09 3:53pm
Msg #281403

Re: I always unsubscribe through emails....

Same here.

Reply by BrendaTx on 3/19/09 6:18pm
Msg #281420

Re: I always unsubscribe through emails....

A quick search for explanation of why Cali and I do not use the "unsubscribe" link yielded lots of links explaining....here are two:


http://online.wsj.com/documents/info-spamfaq02.html
Why doesn't the "unsubscribe" link work?

It would be more surprising if it did work. A study by the Federal Trade Commission found that two-thirds of all "unsubscribe" links fail. >>>>Many anti-spam experts caution that replying to a piece of spam asking to be removed from a list could actually invite more unsolicited e-mail. Once a spammer knows an address works, it will be added to dozens of e-mail lists.<<<<< Don Citarella, an executive with Era 404, a NewYork direct-marketing firm, did his own test of unsubscribe links for a client. After setting up a new account at a free e-mail service, Mr. Citarella submitted his e-mail address asking that it be removed from the list. Within days, Mr. Citarella had received more than 60 pieces of spam at that address.


http://www.ubalt.edu/template.cfm?page=1298
Know when to unsubscribe and know when to walk away.

Some unwanted mail will include unsubscribe options at the bottom of the email. Before clicking on it, visit the web site for that company. Does it feel and look legitimate? Can you locate their Privacy Policy? Do they have a phone or mailing address listed? If the answers are yes, it's probably safe to use the unsubscribe option. If the answers are no, it might be better to walk away. >>>>>>Some sites will interpret your unsubscribe request as confirmation that your email address is legitimate and they can sell it to other places.<<<< Your best option is to see if there's a pattern to the emails you receive from them and setup an email filter to either file or delete those emails


BrendaTx - who knows...
just because you AREN'T paranoid doesn't' mean they AREN'T out to get you!

Reply by BrendaTx on 3/19/09 6:46pm
Msg #281421

Sadly enough, in the final analysis...

you never know WHAT email comes as a result of the harvesting of your "unsubscribe" links to sell to 1000's of other spammers.

For those who don't mind, please ignore...but for those who wonder how it keeps happening to them...there's a method to the madness...you unsubscribe and tell the evil world of spammers that you are a real person with a real email address...it's solid gold for them.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_spam

How spammers operate
Gathering of addresses
Main article: E-mail address harvesting

In order to send spam, spammers need to obtain the e-mail addresses of the intended recipients. To this end, both spammers themselves and list merchants gather huge lists of potential e-mail addresses. Since spam is, by definition, unsolicited, this address harvesting is done without the consent (and sometimes against the expressed will) of the address owners. As a consequence, spammers' address lists are inaccurate. A single spam run may target tens of millions of possible addresses — many of which are invalid, malformed, or undeliverable.

Sometimes, if the sent spam is "bounced" or sent back to the sender by various programs that eliminate spam,>>>>>> or if the recipient clicks on an unsubscribe link, that may cause that email address to be marked as "valid", which is interpreted by the spammer as "send me more".<<<<<<