spam of shame Archives

I like most of you receive several dozen SPAM emails daily. I thought I would take a few minutes to shame a company and their employee publicly in this blog post. If either of them have an issue with that the simple solution would be to stop sending SPAM. Here’s my critique of both the spam and the company that sent them.

I’ve included the headers but have replaced my actual email address with “Me@MyDomain.com” from each of these emails. It’s not at all hard to find my email address but I’d rather minimize the amount of spam that ends up in my inbox.

Exibit #1: LiquidWeb Spam #1 from Patrick K. Henderson

This was the first email from Patrick K. Henderson who’s a “Senior Business Development Executive” over at LiquidWeb. Apparently a “Senior Business Development Executive”s job at LiquidWeb is to send out lots of SPAM in the hopes of attracting new customers. Notice how he mentions my credentials but makes no mention of where he’s seen my credentials or what exactly about them warranted this unsolicited email. He was however kind enough to enclose a personalized tracking link with a $75 coupon for their service. $75 won’t go far though as their services seem to be several times more expensive than their non SPAM sending competitors.

Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of phenderson@liquidweb.com designates 69.167.129.136 as permitted sender) client-ip=69.167.129.136;
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 08:45:33 -0500 (EST)
From: Patrick Henderson <phenderson@liquidweb.com>
To: Me@MyDomain.com
Message-ID: <416432730.624972.1418910333597.JavaMail.zimbra@liquidweb.com>
Subject: Liquid Web - Gift Certificate
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; 
    boundary="----=_Part_624971_400096354.1418910333596"
Thread-Topic: Liquid Web - Gift Certificate
Thread-Index: MXQDxaJ2eD2sEDArZiQYmmSeVTFByA==

------=_Part_624971_400096354.1418910333596
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit


Hello Ben, 

Happy Holidays from Liquid Web! 

Please take a spin on our cloud platform, STORM. Based on your credentials you'd make an excellent customer or employee. Let me know if you sign up today. Thanks. 

https://www.liquidweb.com/campaign/V__Am379v35JU_SHUAchE8ZnR7s 
--------------------------------- 
Patrick K. Henderson 
Senior Business Development Executive 

phenderson@liquidweb.com 
Twitter: @Liquidweb 

Liquid Web, Inc. 
www.LiquidWeb.com 
support@liquidweb.com 

800-580-4985 ext. 2195 TollFree 
517-322-0434 ext. 2195 Int. 
517-322-0493 Fax

Exibit #2 : LiquidWeb SPAM #2 through SalesFoce.com

This was the second email that I received from LiquidWeb. For the sake of brevity I’m only including the printable version. This second email seems to be an automated response and by salesforce.com. It was probably triggered by Patrick, one of his lackeys or an automated spam script importing my contact information into salesforce.com

Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of sales=liquidweb.com__0-2q6rd9cvgkaoxd@qvu7ml2g4yz5ly.3-pmdyeai.na13.bnc.salesforce.com designates 204.14.232.77 as permitted sender) client-ip=204.14.232.77;
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 15:31:03 +0000 (GMT)
From: Liquid Web Sales <sales@liquidweb.com>
Sender: noreply@salesforce.com
To: "Me@MyDomain.com" <me@mydomain.com>
Message-ID: <2Jc6g000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000NGSB3R00HGNSwf6HQQyBoFXgOouN7w@sfdc.net>
Subject: Thank you for contacting Liquid Web!
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; 
    boundary="----=_Part_12143_1411681069.1418916663366"
X-mail_abuse_inquiries: http://www.salesforce.com/company/abuse.jsp
X-SFDC-TLS-NoRelay: 1
X-SFDC-EmailCategory: workflowActionAlert
X-SFDC-EntityId: 01Wa0000000U7YE
X-SFDC-Binding: 1WrIRBV94myi25uB

------=_Part_12143_1411681069.1418916663366
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Hello!

Thank you for chatting with us today!

It is our sincere hope that by discussing your options, we were able to pro=
vide useful and pertinent information that will assist you throughout your =
search for the perfect hosting provider. From what we have discussed, we fe=
el that Liquid Web will be a great fit for you and cannot wait to take this=
 potential partnership to the next level with our premium hosting, customer=
 service, and Heroic Support.

Please feel free to contact us if you require further assistance and/or hav=
e any additional questions regarding our services. We are available 24/7/36=
5 via phone, chat, or e-mail using the contact information below.

Thank you very much for your time, and have a great day!

Liquid Web Sales
sales@liquidweb.com
800-580-4985
1-517-322-0434 (international)

P.S. Don't forget to sign up for the Liquid Web Shop, where you can get FRE=
E gifts. Sign up at http://shop.liquidweb.com. =20

Copyright =A9 2013 Liquid Web, Inc.
4210 S. Creyts Rd.  Lansing, MI 48917

In this second email they are thanking me for chatting with them however I’ve I’ve never spoken, chatted or emailed with anyone at LiquidWeb. I was busy working on something else and hadn’t noticed either of these messages for a couple of hours. Did they want me to review my product? Maybe they wanted to hire me but for what position? The first email was vague but mentioned my credentials. I was intrigued enough to take a look at what it is they’re selling and to view their companies profile over at GlassDoor.com. I’ll summarize what I’ve found but feel free to do your own research. Apparently they’re a poorly run overpriced hosting company located in the dying rust belt town of Lansing Michigan. I can’t imagine why anyone would choose them over a lower cost alternative with a better reputation such as Linode or DigitalOcean managed by CloudWays. Definitely not a place I would want to work.

Their target demographic seems to be the technologically illiterate middle management of the corporate world. You can’t really hold that against them though as it’s the same profitable uninformed demographic that at least 80% of tech companies are targeting with their marketing.

Exibit #3: My reply

The emails I’ve received from LiquidWeb have been vague and impersonal enough that I was fairly certain that this was just a slightly targeted SPAM. I decided to reply and confront Patrick at LiquidWeb regarding the past two emails.

MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: by 10.27.87.169 with HTTP; Thu, 18 Dec 2014 09:02:44 -0800 (PST)
In-Reply-To: <416432730.624972.1418910333597.JavaMail.zimbra@liquidweb.com>
References: <416432730.624972.1418910333597.JavaMail.zimbra@liquidweb.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 20:02:44 +0300
Delivered-To: Me@MyDomain.com
Message-ID: <ca+zhljsiywqkjs9d4gggdpfzpgfigsb4ms2-o7emjefc9eojiw@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Liquid Web - Gift Certificate
From: Benjamin Knigge <me@mydomain.com>
To: Patrick Henderson <phenderson@liquidweb.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

What list did you pull my email off of? I've never contacted your
company before and now I get two emails from your company within 20
minutes of each other.

Your service seems fairly expensive for what you're offering when
compared to Linode, Digital Ocean or Vultr.

Exibit #4: The Denial

Delivered-To: Me@MyDomain.com
Received: by 10.27.128.193 with SMTP id b184csp1693618wld;
        Thu, 18 Dec 2014 09:08:49 -0800 (PST)
X-Received: by 10.42.161.7 with SMTP id r7mr2741984icx.75.1418922528678;
        Thu, 18 Dec 2014 09:08:48 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <phenderson@liquidweb.com>
Received: from mx01.liquidweb.com (mx01.liquidweb.com. [69.167.129.136])
        by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id ba7si6128013icb.70.2014.12.18.09.08.48
        for <me@mydomain.com>
        (version=TLSv1 cipher=RC4-SHA bits=128/128);
        Thu, 18 Dec 2014 09:08:48 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of phenderson@liquidweb.com designates 69.167.129.136 as permitted sender) client-ip=69.167.129.136;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com;
       spf=pass (google.com: domain of phenderson@liquidweb.com designates 69.167.129.136 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=phenderson@liquidweb.com
Received: from zimbra.liquidweb.com ([67.227.128.88]:51239)
    by mx01.liquidweb.com with esmtp (Exim 4.63)
    (envelope-from <phenderson@liquidweb.com>)
    id 1Y1eZD-0000FU-PM
    for Me@MyDomain.com; Thu, 18 Dec 2014 12:08:47 -0500
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 12:08:47 -0500 (EST)
From: Patrick Henderson <phenderson@liquidweb.com>
To: ben <me@mydomain.com>
Message-ID: <1893151440.639959.1418922527626.JavaMail.zimbra@liquidweb.com>
In-Reply-To: <ca+zhljsiywqkjs9d4gggdpfzpgfigsb4ms2-o7emjefc9eojiw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <416432730.624972.1418910333597.JavaMail.zimbra@liquidweb.com> <ca+zhljsiywqkjs9d4gggdpfzpgfigsb4ms2-o7emjefc9eojiw@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Liquid Web - Gift Certificate
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; 
    boundary="----=_Part_639958_1526176102.1418922527625"
X-Originating-IP: [10.30.6.5]
X-Mailer: Zimbra 8.5.1_GA_3056 (ZimbraWebClient - GC39 (Win)/8.5.1_GA_3056)
Thread-Topic: Liquid Web - Gift Certificate
Thread-Index: FK1WXKLViZKVSI49lUJoMlnST/DLkA==

------=_Part_639958_1526176102.1418922527625
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hello Ben, 

I ran across your website online. You were not a list, but your background seemed interesting; you would be an excellent candidate for either being a customer or employee. 

Have you heard of Liquid Web? We have never competed in the small budget hosting space, because many of our customers are very serious about their web hosting and they value our support, HEROIC SUPPORT (R). You are not obligated to sign up for FREE HOSTING, but Our cloud platform, STORM, has 3 unique zones here in Michigan and a zone out in Arizona. We'll be opening a zone and hosting in Europe in Q1:2015. 

STORM offers: 

geographic diversity 
high vertical performance cloud servers 
resizing, cloning, image management, and rapid deployments (linux/windows) 
load balancing, ip pools, firewalls, private networks, vpn, etc. 
block storage 
object-storage 
api access and support 

--------------------------------- 
Patrick K. Henderson 
Senior Business Development Executive 

phenderson@liquidweb.com 
Twitter: @Liquidweb 

Liquid Web, Inc. 
www.LiquidWeb.com 
support@liquidweb.com 

800-580-4985 ext. 2195 TollFree 
517-322-0434 ext. 2195 Int. 
517-322-0493 Fax 
-------------------------------

Caught in a lie

Before trying to sell me his overpriced products again Patrick takes a moment to claim that the reason he’s contacting me is because he came across my website. For some odd reason he fails to mention the name of the website, how he came across it or why he thought I would be interested in they products that he’s trying to sell. I own two websites. This one and Heptec.com which is an as of yet unfinished single page app that I plan on using to host my resume. Neither of my sites provide my email address. I’m just guessing here but LiquidWeb most likely bought my email address from someone or pulled it out of the my domain registry records. I think the mention of a possible employment opportunity is deliberately designed to lessen the odds of the email being rightfully called out and flagged as the SPAM it is.

If you’ve received a similar piece of SPAM from LiquidWeb please leave me a comment and let me know. It’s my hope that by posting this I will be able to shame the SPAM sending companies into cleaning up their act.

If Patrick K. Henderson or anyone else from LiquidWeb cares to respond to this post I will be sure to post that correspondence in an update here as well.

LiquidWeb SPAM of Shame

Exibit #1: LiquidWeb Spam #1 from Patrick K. Henderson

Exibit #2 : LiquidWeb SPAM #2 through SalesFoce.com

Exibit #3: My reply

Exibit #4: The Denial

Caught in a lie

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Free SSL with CloudFlare, OpenSSL and Nginx on Ubuntu

Exibit #1: LiquidWeb Spam #1 from Patrick K. Henderson

Exibit #2 : LiquidWeb SPAM #2 through SalesFoce.com

Exibit #3: My reply

Exibit #4: The Denial

Caught in a lie

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