eROI Days Email Agency » Worst of Email

A New Level of Dislike for Spammers

Ryan Buchanan — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:03:43 +0000

My parents taught me to stay away from the word “hate”, so I’m going to use some dramatic adjectives like supremely dislike in association with a major spammer who has rocked my (our) world in the past couple weeks. The recent situation has affected a small handful of our valued clients and for that, I’m incredibly pained by this attack from this anonymous, unseen perpetrator/spammer(s). Here’s what I’m referring to:

Recently, a number of email marketing platforms, including emailROI, were the target of an attack by hackers/spammers. The result of this attack has shown that a small group of emailROI accounts were compromised. Within hours of learning of this, we called and emailed those client contacts and immediately notified them of what had transpired. It appeared that the hackers’ intent, in how it affected us, was to spam folks, and fortunately we caught it quickly so it only impacted a few valued clients. As a full-service email and interactive agency, we have never captured or stored credit cards through the emailROI application, and we did not and do not capture/store personal financial info either.

Once we identified what was occurring, the quickest, most efficient way to stop the attack was to reset all account passwords. This is why all of our emailROI clients were required to update their emailROI password this week upon logging in. Since then we have implemented a number of additional security measures to remedy the threat the attack created. We are taking every possible step to tighten security to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.

How might this affect our emailROI clients?
The process for updating everyone’s passwords will need to be a manual one. While we are working to make this as seamless as possible, we have to address each request as it comes in to our support line. These requests are our top priority to address and we will get to each one as quickly as we possibly can. If you are a client, thank you for your patience as we make our way through that process. The best way that you can help in protecting your account from this point on is to change your password often, and make sure it is secure.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you as a result of this attack. As the changes we have made in the past few days are being done in a live environment, some performance issues have come up within emailROI, and we have been doing our best to work through them as quickly as possible. We feel that these temporary issues are far worth the improved security in both the short and long run.

Please comment below as we want to answer your questions and be as helpful as possible. Our team and I will be approving comments and responding to these comments as fast as we can today and for the weeks to come. Thank you so much for your understanding.

Almost Relevant SPAM

Ryan Buchanan — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:25:33 +0000

It’s a fact. A beautiful fact. I’m bald (it’s okay - I love being bald). It’s so unbelievably low-maintenance and I have grown to prefer the more streamline look I have now. In fact, friends, uncles, whoever I know even sparingly, who are showing clear signs of balding, my response to them is always, “Shave that shit.” In fact, I’m thinking of starting a website – www.shavethatshit.com (don’t buy that domain, I may use it) – and showing unoptimized, balding horse-shoe hairstyles on them. Then again, maybe not. I got some spam that made it into my inbox untouched, which made me think that AlviArmani (see photo below) knew I was bald, but didn’t know me well enough to know that I would prefer a razor to hair treatment for men. I liked the Before and After picture so much, I had to share it with you.

EA Should Know that Video Is NOT for Email

Ryan Buchanan — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 17:48:49 +0000

I have to throw this one into the Worst of Email category today as I can never understand why people try to place video in an email. It just does not work. In recent tests only 4 out of 45 email clients will play or at least render the image. If you MUST add a video to your email try either a rotating image or a static image to get me to see it. (Which of course you can in a web browser after the jump).

Remember that we ALL LOVE video now that we have the bandwidth, but there are still some contraints.

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Don’t YELL AT ME IN EMAIL!!!!

Ryan Buchanan — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 16:44:47 +0000

Now I like Norm Thompson, but I just don’t get the ALL CAPS in the Subject line. It is like they are SHOUTING AT ME TO OPEN THIS EMAIL. And did I? Well only because I like to look at what they did. As a consumer, major turn off. And if you shout, give me something of substance that warrants shouting dammit.

Overall it just does not match up with the brand attributes to shout.

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I Need Your Help with Some Funds

Ryan Buchanan — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 02:01:36 +0000

This is a variation of the Nigerian Bank Scam that we have ALL grown so fond of. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to get emails from stangers that I can helpl. Kind of like Sally Field at 1am asking me to feed the children. It makes me feel like I have spent time with this scam from a little one to a full blown, “Just Insert Name and Event Here” and help me move some money.

The bad thing is sooo many people have fallen for this scam. Poor bastards.

Paul Harden & Co
Swan Centre, Fishers Lane
Chiswick London, W4 1RX. UK.
Email:- harden1@*******.com

Dear Friend,

I am writing you this proposal on behalf of my chambers. I got your information through my personal search for a honest person whom i will work with,hence I decided to seek your veiws if you will work with me, due to the sensitivity of this transaction and my position as a lawyer.

I am Barrister Paul Harden from UK, representing Mr. Martin Greenberg, a foreign, Engineer by profession, who died since 1999, in an Egypt Air crash, on the 31st October along with other passengers on board.

Before his death, he has a huge sum of (US$25.5) which no other person knew about, he intended to invest in Southern part of Africa. This fund has NO other beneficiary and I have the original documents of Deposit/claim certificate to claim the money of w
hich the amount

involved is (US$25.5M) Twenty Five Millions five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars.

The fund is rigth now under the custody of a Security Company, which I will not like to disclose at the moment until I confirm your willingness to assist me in this project.

Early this year, the Security Company sent me a letter, since I was his lawyer, asking me to present his NEXT OF KIN, to enable them release the said funds.

My disire is to be able to source a foreign partner who is honest and trustworthy individual,so that I can present to the Security Company as the NEXT OF KIN of the Late Mr. Greenberg so that the fund can be release to him/her.

If you are willing to assist me in this transaction, your compensation will be (20% ), while I receives (70%) and the balance of (10%) for taxes and other miscellaneous expenses.

This transaction is 100% risk free provided you treat the transaction with utmost secrecy and confidentiality and also with my position as Esquire, I will perfect all the necessary documents on your name as soon as you are ready to do this deal with me.

Endeavour to email me the following information at harden2@******.com

Names, Address, Phone and Fax Numbers, Age, Sex, Marital Status and Occupation.

Thank you and God Bless,

Barrister. Paul Harden
ATTORNEY -AT- LAW

Don’t buy her flowers, Give her milk

Ryan Buchanan — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 12:45:40 +0000

Now, I’m not a fan of SPAM and never will be, but this subject line really caught my attention. I’m not a lesbian (although I sometimes think about it), but I’m thinking that the milk industry is making a comeback. Flowers, chocolate, Victoria’s Secret – that’s old news. What you really need to do to get a woman going is head to 7 Eleven and pick up a gallon of milk – the cow hormones apparently get other hormones worked up. The Porn email starts here and continues when you click to read more:

> From: Sonja [mailto:kmjysxbxc@jodypolk.com]
> Subject: **** SPAM **** Don`t buy her flowers, give her milk…

> Increase your xxx VOLUME, and xxx Length
> main benifits:
> – The longest most intense xxx of your life
> – XXX like steel
> – lncreased xxx/desire
> – Stronger xxx(watch where your xxx)
> – Multiple xxx
> – Up to 500% more volume (xxx xxx in it if you want)
> – Studies show it xxx xxx
>
> DISCREET SAME DAY SHIPPING – TRY IT, YOU’LL LOVE IT!
> (and she’ll xxx you for it)

The government made me edit this blog entry. Or maybe it was The Man. No, truth be told, it was my parents. Why do we listen to our parents when we don’t have to? The weird thing is when you turn into your parents. Oh well – let your imagination run wild with the censored entry above.