I am thinking it is probably time for Paysites to Educate the Surfers

[Jim]

One of 2 things has to happen with more and more people using spamarrest and other such services.

First let me start by saying that I think anyone that uses spamarrest or any other 3rd party spam service is doing a great disservice to this business. My hopes are that not many surfers ever find any of these services but, I suspect it is only a matter of time.

As far as webmasters using it, it's not so bad. Except if you need to email someone at a cc processor and expect a reply. Which brings me to 1 of 2 things having to happen.

Either all paysites and cc processors have to hire someone to authorize themselves or, paysites have to educate the surfer about using any of these services.

As far as I know, and I could be wrong but...right now, very, very few processors authorize themselves when a spamarrest comes in. So, what happens when a surfer uses spamarrest and expects a password or just has a question from a processor or expects a reply to the paysite's owner? CHARGEBACKS!!!

With these services becoming more and more prevalent, we need to start acting on the problem.

Many webmasters here use spamarrest. And, either Greenguy or myself have to authorize our emails. Even when they sign up to the board, their confirmation goes through spamarrest and we have to authorize. Not to mention the newsletter.

Spam is bad but chargebacks caused by these services are worse for us. With our email addresses all over this board, Greenguy and I get as much spam as anyone in the business. Neither of us use any service. It's just too easy to hit delete.

[babymaker]

is spamarrent the one that SPAMS you when you authorize your email to go though?? I love that

[Jim]

You have to unclick the button on spamarrest so you don't get spammed.

[ClickBuster]

If I was CCBill, I would have contaced SpamArrest and asked politely to pass thru my emails. You never know, maybe they do have a contract or two I'm sure they felt the pain anyway.

[SykkBoy]

I'm amazed at how many webmasters use spamarrest. The first couple times I sent out the affiliate newsletter, I was getting tons of spamarrest emails and would reach my maximum number of daily replies and have to wait until the next day to do more.

[Jim]

And, when a webmaster uses it and answers a surfer's question, the surfer now knows about it.

[xxxjay]

Originally Posted by Jim

One of 2 things has to happen with more and more people using spamarrest and other such services.

First let me start by saying that I think anyone that uses spamarrest or any other 3rd party spam service is doing a great disservice to this business. My hopes are that not many surfers ever find any of these services but, I suspect it is only a matter of time.

As far as webmasters using it, it's not so bad. Except if you need to email someone at a cc processor and expect a reply. Which brings me to 1 of 2 things having to happen.

Either all paysites and cc processors have to hire someone to authorize themselves or, paysites have to educate the surfer about using any of these services.

As far as I know, and I could be wrong but...right now, very, very few processors authorize themselves when a spamarrest comes in. So, what happens when a surfer uses spamarrest and expects a password or just has a question from a processor or expects a reply to the paysite's owner? CHARGEBACKS!!!

With these services becoming more and more prevalent, we need to start acting on the problem.

Many webmasters here use spamarrest. And, either Greenguy or myself have to authorize our emails. Even when they sign up to the board, their confirmation goes through spamarrest and we have to authorize. Not to mention the newsletter.

Spam is bad but chargebacks caused by these services are worse for us. With our email addresses all over this board, Greenguy and I get as much spam as anyone in the business. Neither of us use any service. It's just too easy to hit delete.

I can't stand spam arrest. I don't really know what is going on behind the scences with those services, but I always just assumed that they were probably selling your addresses to spammers...hell, the "confirmation" email you get is just a spam for their service.

And yeah, a lot of mail (including ePassporte) is blocked by the large cable providers mailservers. Why add another layer?

You are right Jim, a few quick words about spam arrest on the join forms would probably work wonders on the CBs.

Good idea.

[RawAlex]

I recently put spam arrest in because my existing email addresses are so jammed up with shit that they were becoming unusable.

You can pre-load and preauth everyone in your current address book, so it isn't a big hassle. You can confirm people in even if they don't confirm themselves, and it is pretty easy to do everything else.

Yes, it is a self-perpetuating sort of semi-spam concept of it's own, but when I go and check the 16 pages of shit that got filtered off today, well, it reminds me why I put it in place.

I think it would be important for any program - any system - to look at the whole deal and make handling the technology that people are using as an important part of the game.

Perhaps the processors should filter off these confirmation mails and send them to a real person to process and get the stuff through? Keeping chargeback ratios in line is in their best interest as well.

Alex

[Mr. Stiff]

There are even webmasters submitting galleries to me with spamarrest protected e-mailadresses.. DOH!

[[BV]]

Jim,

Does Spam Arrest send out a confirmation to CCBill if CCBill is replying to an email sent by a customer using Spam Arrest? Common sense would have Spam Arrest pre-confirm all "sent to" emails.

or do you think the problem is more from emails first initiated by the biller? like the members first welcome/password email?

[RawAlex]

Spam Arrest does pre-confirm any addresses that are sent through it. However, many ISPs (including my own) block access to remote mail servers (in a weird attempt to stop spammers) so I cannot profit from this feature.

Alex

[Jim]

The problem isn't just spamarrest. I have never used it so, Rawalex knows much more than I do about how it works.

With that said, I am going to perform a few tests on the more prevalent 3rd party spam filters. I am going to sign up to all of them using different email addresses. I am going to join sites that use different processors and will let you guys know the results.

[Tommy]

Hey Jim


dont forget
if spam arrest blocks the email it must dump that email in a spam folder and the surfer can dig it out

surfers are gonna be aware of this problem because they are buying all sorts of stuff on the web

tv's at best buy, books at amazon, music at Itunes, etc etc etc

[RawAlex]

Tommy, you are correct - I go there a couple of times a day and look for stuff to approve. the ratio of good to bad is falling pretty quickly as I let most of the programs, stats, and other stuff through when I see them, which clears things up nicely.

Commercial filtering software may have issues with bad words or whatnot...

Alex

[Jim]

See, that's where the education has to be put in place. "If you are using spamarrest, please preauthorize any email from ccbill" A surfer may look at that spam folder and decide something from ccbill is spam. Just simple education is what is needed.

[Jim]

Here is a for instance
Some of the best traffic comes from AOL. Why do people use AOL? Mostly because they are too new to know that there are easier, faster and cheaper ways to get online. I know AOL has it's own filter as well but, some will still use the 3rd party anti-spam programs. And again, they will be too new to know that an email from epoch or ccbill would not be spam.

Quick Edit because I just read Tommy's post.
When you purchase something from the merchants you listed, you get an email from them. They will be expecting something from Amazon or another merchant. Most of the adult programs are far from being setup like Amazon.

[Jim]

Alex, what is the difference between having a spam filter on spamarrest and a junk folder in Eudora?

[virgohippy]

Sounds pretty easy when you put it that way, Jim. Right after a surfer whips out that CC, and does the loveliest of lovelies, the paysite can put a message right above the new user/pass:

Originally Posted by Jim

"If you are using spamarrest, please preauthorize any email from ccbill"

Seems like an easy concept to sell to paysites to build a good relationship with their clients.

[RawAlex]

Jim, the easiest way I can explain it is to compare it to most filtering systems out there (inlcuding my mail system).

You write rules and declare things as "spam". Over time more and more rules are written to filter spam. Eudora uses (if I remember correctly) a sort of voting system where the more people that make something spam, the more likely it is to be spam. Yahoo mail does the same.

But the nature of this is "good to start, spam if you make it spam". Spamarrest works the other way "spam until you prove you are human". Once they prove they are human, you never have to worry about them again. It isn't a blacklist - it is a whitelist that people can become part of without any action on your part. I scan the spam messages looking for programs and stuff right now, but over time that will become more and more rare as I will have the programs I use in there.

I might whitelist 500 or 1000 senders over time, but that is a whole lot easier than trying to blacklist the millions of spam mail accounts and misspelled version of v\@gr/\ and c|@l\s out there.

Alex

[tickler]

A lot of ISPs also use online filters like ordb.net that check the email and block it even before you see it.

I've had to have vendors(software/content) go back, and have their shopping carts regenerate the emails containing download links a few times because I never even got a chance to receive them. Now I just send them to a domain email in case they happen to be on a list.

[LB]

I gotta admit to using spamarrest.

I was getting upwards of 500-1000 spams a day and if i didn't use something like spamarrest then my email address would have be unusable. Problem is that the filters either don't block anywhere near enough, or they block the good stuff aswell, so spamarrest was the only program that worked.

I have started using a direct email address, but am very careful who I give it out to for obvious reasons

[tigermom]

I think educating surfers is the right thing to do. You can't prevent people from using spam filters. Fact is, many email services have one in place that you may not even be aware of. Just saying something like: " please note that our reply emails may get blocked by any spam blockers you may have in place. If you don't see our confirmation email in your inbox, please check your spam folders", should do the trick.

[becky]

I've been using spamarrest for over 3 years now. But it is difficult at times to use because people don't authorize themselves, especially when doing things like board signups that require confirmation. What I would love to see is anyone requiring you to receive a confirmation email address to list the exact address that the confirmation is coming from so I can just add it in manually. But I will gladly trade off the few emails I might miss to keep from getting thousands of spams a day, wasting time I could better spend doing something else.

[Simon]

This may be a bit of overkill, but this page is something we've used to help build a nice double opt-in mailing list even with all the spam filters that are in the way of confirmation emails.

http://www.fetishexchange.org/fetish-news/

The page gives subscribers info on how to manage a variety of email accounts and spam filters. Some of the text might need a little updating for newer versions, but anyone should feel free to copy any part or parts you can use.


Simon

[Jim]

A little overkill but in the right direction. We just approve everyone here..but dealing with webmasters there really aren't that many.