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This is exactly the type of asshat who is screwing things up for the rest of us.
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB1...HcKqDm4,00.html
For Orlando Soto,
No Day Is Complete
Without Some Spam
Lovers of Unsolicited E-Mail
Keep Industry Afloat;
'It's Like a Treasure Hunt'
By MYLENE MANGALINDAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
NEW YORK -- Orlando Soto looks forward each evening to spending time on his home computer after work. But when he logged on one Wednesday night last month, he was disappointed: There were 17 spam e-mail messages waiting for him.
"Only 17," he lamented, scrolling through them. "That's a very light day."
Mr. Soto routinely comes home to some 150 e-mail pitches, and he loves getting them all. The 45-year-old grandfather opens most of them. He answers spam questionnaires. And he buys stuff pitched in spam e-mail -- again and again. "Everyday people call it spam," says Mr. Soto, who prefers calling it "unsolicited" e-mail. "But I'm open to everything."
If everyone hated spam, it would disappear. But like the traditional direct-mail marketers and telemarketers who came before them, spammers survive public outrage, filters, lawsuits and regulations because innumerable times a day, somebody, somewhere responds with money.
One such somebody is Mr. Soto. He buys spam-pitched aromatherapy oils for his wife and pharmaceuticals for himself. His bookcases are lined with first-edition mystery novels he bought via spam. In a corner of his two-bedroom midtown-Manhattan apartment stands an antique pinball machine bought via spam. He plays Internet bingo at five cents a game on a Web site pitched to him by spam a few weeks ago. He buys stuff via spam for himself and to resell on Web sites he sets up -- a business idea he got from a spam pitch.
Spam helps him "unwind" and "lose the stress of the day," Mr. Soto says.
He's the kind of person spammers love: a serial buyer. He says that he sometimes spends hundreds of dollars a week buying via spam. Most spam responders are one-time customers, e-mail marketers say, so repeaters make all the difference. Scott Richter, who runs a mass e-mailing company called Optinrealbig.com LLC in Westminster, Colo., says about a fifth of those who order his vitamins and other products buy again. "Those repeat buyers help generate a bulk of the revenue," he says.
There must be a lot of Mr. Sotos out there. In a survey by MailShell, a San Francisco antispam company, 8% of respondents said they have bought products via spam. Spammers say that percentage is probably low because many people are too embarrassed to admit responding to spam.
Spammers say they typically need just one buyer per 10,000 spam messages to break even. Mr. Soto recently spent more than $100 on vitamins from a spam pitch that touted: "Buy 1, get 2 free, plus free shipping!" If this particular solicitation was typical, spam experts say, the spammer probably sent it to about five million people with a commission of about 30%. If 500 buyers averaged spending what Mr. Soto spent on the vitamins, the spammer would bring in about $15,000 in revenue from the mailing.
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB1...HcKqDm4,00.html
For Orlando Soto,
No Day Is Complete
Without Some Spam
Lovers of Unsolicited E-Mail
Keep Industry Afloat;
'It's Like a Treasure Hunt'
By MYLENE MANGALINDAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
NEW YORK -- Orlando Soto looks forward each evening to spending time on his home computer after work. But when he logged on one Wednesday night last month, he was disappointed: There were 17 spam e-mail messages waiting for him.
"Only 17," he lamented, scrolling through them. "That's a very light day."
Mr. Soto routinely comes home to some 150 e-mail pitches, and he loves getting them all. The 45-year-old grandfather opens most of them. He answers spam questionnaires. And he buys stuff pitched in spam e-mail -- again and again. "Everyday people call it spam," says Mr. Soto, who prefers calling it "unsolicited" e-mail. "But I'm open to everything."
If everyone hated spam, it would disappear. But like the traditional direct-mail marketers and telemarketers who came before them, spammers survive public outrage, filters, lawsuits and regulations because innumerable times a day, somebody, somewhere responds with money.
One such somebody is Mr. Soto. He buys spam-pitched aromatherapy oils for his wife and pharmaceuticals for himself. His bookcases are lined with first-edition mystery novels he bought via spam. In a corner of his two-bedroom midtown-Manhattan apartment stands an antique pinball machine bought via spam. He plays Internet bingo at five cents a game on a Web site pitched to him by spam a few weeks ago. He buys stuff via spam for himself and to resell on Web sites he sets up -- a business idea he got from a spam pitch.
Spam helps him "unwind" and "lose the stress of the day," Mr. Soto says.
He's the kind of person spammers love: a serial buyer. He says that he sometimes spends hundreds of dollars a week buying via spam. Most spam responders are one-time customers, e-mail marketers say, so repeaters make all the difference. Scott Richter, who runs a mass e-mailing company called Optinrealbig.com LLC in Westminster, Colo., says about a fifth of those who order his vitamins and other products buy again. "Those repeat buyers help generate a bulk of the revenue," he says.
There must be a lot of Mr. Sotos out there. In a survey by MailShell, a San Francisco antispam company, 8% of respondents said they have bought products via spam. Spammers say that percentage is probably low because many people are too embarrassed to admit responding to spam.
Spammers say they typically need just one buyer per 10,000 spam messages to break even. Mr. Soto recently spent more than $100 on vitamins from a spam pitch that touted: "Buy 1, get 2 free, plus free shipping!" If this particular solicitation was typical, spam experts say, the spammer probably sent it to about five million people with a commission of about 30%. If 500 buyers averaged spending what Mr. Soto spent on the vitamins, the spammer would bring in about $15,000 in revenue from the mailing.
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