I saw your store on AuctionWatch. My name is XXX XXXXX, and I am a
software developer and consultant. I also sell on eBay, and I have
developed a software application that can allow you to contact eBay users
who are interested in particular types of items. If you have something to
sell, the easiest way to sell it is to contact people who've bid on the
same type of item. This program automates the process of finding the
people and sending the message.
Just thought you might be interested. Let me know if you are and I'll
send more information.
Regards,
XXXXX
http://getbidders.com/getbidders.html
[ edited by imagecomposer on Oct 26, 2001 03:05 PM ]
posted on October 26, 2001 03:52:07 PM new
Looks like an email harvesting program that they want you to buy for $199, which is against eBay's TOS.
[ edited by AuctionPulse on Oct 26, 2001 03:54 PM ]
posted on October 26, 2001 04:09:33 PM new
Yes received it and wrote back. Sorry I am not interested because it was against ebays rules. I also said that I don't accept spam mail and I consider this spam. THere was a few other things I said but can't remember. What a joke, we are being scamed by someone, when will it stop. Why can't it be simple.
Nothing is simple any more....
posted on October 28, 2001 12:10:57 PM new
I got the same one,
I wont bore you with eBays response to it after I forwarded it to spam@ebay,
But I did reply to this guy asking for his ID so I can see software at work,
Here is his email:
Hi --
My eBay ID reveals my "day job", and I really don't think my boss would
like this, so I can't really tell anyone. But trust me, the software
works. Here's some more info:
OK, here's how it works. This software is a Windows-based tool that can
spider though eBay and get a list of either all the bidders, or all the
sellers, for any search you can do on eBay.
It can also get all the bidders or sellers who participate in any
category. And it can pull all the bidders who have bid on a particular
seller's items, or a particular item number. It can retrieve data from
auctions that go back 30 days.
Examples:
* Find all the bidders who have bid on an item with "Reggie Jackson
baseball" in the title in the last 30 days (with a minimum price of
$50.)
* Find all the sellers who are selling an item in the
"Art:Paintings:Contemporary" category currently.
* Get all the bidders who have bid on items being sold by "CompetitorX".
The program collects eBay user IDs. What can you do with a list of eBay
user IDs? Not many people know this, but it is possible to send a single
message to a large group of eBay user IDs at the same time. I have a
program that can automate this, and send a message through eBay to
everyone on your list very quickly, with a single push of a button.
Don't want to send email through eBay? I have a solution:
The program can automatically sift out all the email addresses from a
list of user IDs. I've found that approximately 20-25 percent of eBay
user IDs are email addresses. I've also designed a way to get even MORE
email addresses for sellers - instead of just looking at the user ID,
the program also scans auctions description pages looking for hidden
email links, like the one that appears in every PayPal banner. You
should able to get over 30% of seller's email addresses in most cases.
The program has lots of other features, as well, and can save lists,
combine them, remove duplicates from several lists, check to see if
bidders are also sellers, etc.
Below ther is a link to some screeshots of the program in action. It
looks more complicated than it really is. If you can do a search on
eBay, you can use this program.
I don't have a screenshot of the eBay auto-mailing program, but it looks
a lot like any other simple email program. It can read lists of users
you've created with the collector program, and send each of them an
individual message. It sends messages very quickly.
Some people are concerned about eBay's email policies. If you use this
program, you should be cautious, but you should be aware that there are
many ways to use it that do not violate eBay's policies. You can
conduct market research, ask questions, offer advice, etc. You could
contact people about things that have nothing to do with your eBay
sales, for instance, like directing them to a helpful website that
relates closely to their interest. This does NOT violate eBay rules.
The important thing is that this system will let you contact HIGHLY
targeted lists of eBay users, and that can be valuable to you in many
way. There's no better way to contact people who are interested in a
PRECISE type of item than to find the people who are selling it or
bidding on it.
This is professional-grade software. It uses Internet multi-threading
to make many simultaneous connections to eBay while it is extracting
data, and it can analyze over 100,000 auctions in a single session, if
you ever saw the need to do so. It runs on all modern Windows systems
and can run in the background while you're using other programs. It is
a powerful application designed for powersellers.
Now for the screenshots! Have a look:
http://getbidders.com/getbidders.html
I orgininally developed this for one seller who used it with phenomenal
results. I have added onto it since then extensively, and the few other
sellers I've offered it to have all reported fantastic results. The
price of the software is $199, and it will undoubtedly pay for itself in
no time if you are serious about promoting your products, your website,
or your services.
If you think you might like to buy it, let me let you kick the tires by
performing a search for you. Tell me what you want, and we'll return
the results!
I accept PayPal to this address. If you want a way to pay through on
online credit card processor, I can set that up for you also. When you
pay, I will provide you with a download link you can use to get the
installation package, and will provide instructions for how to use the
program.
Please contact me with any questions or comments.
Regards,
XXX XXXXXX
So he even agrees that it's againts eBay policy and for $200.00 I'll rather go and email the people myself (kidding kidding,
Just making a point!!!)
posted on October 28, 2001 12:19:09 PM new
I got the same email the other day. I don't have an auctionwatch store either. My email address is my user Id at eBay. He must have gotten it before I quit listing there.
I replied to him and told him he was spamming and that I was not interested. I also thought that his program that he was tring to sell sounded to me like something that would allow spamming also.
posted on October 28, 2001 01:28:34 PM new
I inquired about the software too.
It can only deliver the email addresses if you plug in a valid eBay user ID. This guy suggested using a secondary eBay user ID to use the software and spam people.
I suppose it would be worth a try if you didin't have a lot of feedback to risk and were confident that if caught you could register again.
But I don't know why any eBayer would spam. Hell, it's easy enough to PO a buyer in a regular eBay deal without using spam.
posted on October 30, 2001 06:03:18 AM new"I replied to him and told him he was spamming and that I was not interested. I also thought that his program that he was tring to sell sounded to me like something that would allow spamming also."
Replying to spam mail is the worst possible thing you can do. All you're doing is confirming to the spammer that your email address is "active", pretty much guaranteeing your address be kept in circulation & sold & resold.
Same with emails that say "to unsubscribe from this list, send an email with "unsubscribe" in the subject heading, or click *here*"-- never do this, for the same reasons as above.
The best way of dealing with spam, difficult as it may be, is just delete them unread as they come in, completely ignore them.
Or if you're like me, you can take an aggressive approach by reporting the spammer to his/her ISP. Spamming is against the TOS of almost all ISP's and cause for account cancellation. For this you have to know how to correctly read and interpret "headers" of an email-- not easy and getting more difficult all the time as clever spammers learn to mask their true IP addresses.
Another good way of dealing with the problem is by downloading a tiny freeware program called "Bounce Spam Mail", which, when you enter the spammers address & copy paste his message into, sends his mail back to him as "undeliverable". Since a spammer doesn't like being inundated with bounce backs from "dead" addresses, he removes your address pronto, when and if he sells or shares his list of email addresses, yours will no longer be on it. It's *dead*.
I don't know if I'm permitted under AW CG to post the URL for downloading the freeware, if not I'll edit it out, but you can get it, free, here:
