Re: [tlug] B2B e-mail solicitation response

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "patrick" == patrick niessen <patrick.niessen@example.com> writes:

    patrick> I think in order to qualify for SPAM (capitalised on
    patrick> purpose), you need also apply another criteria besides
    patrick> content: untargeted mass mailing.

What you reposted looks like untargeted mass mail to me, for small
values of "mass".

    patrick> It looks to me that the company who sent the mail is a
    patrick> very small outfit (perhaps even only one bloke), trying
    patrick> to genuinely doing business with us

So far, so good.  But this profile matches the Nigerian scammers.
(Forgive me for taking your words literally; I know you really meant
"trying to do genuine business", ie, mutually beneficial.)

    patrick> (he knew that we are a small branch of a European company
    patrick> who may need some kind of IT support), so I guess he got
    patrick> our details from the register of the Chamber of Commerce,
    patrick> then checked the details of our website to find e-mail
    patrick> addresses.

I see no evidence of that whatsoever.  These days "may need some kind
of IT support" describes everybody who can afford a keitai phone.
There is nothing that shows he knows anything about your company in
the messages you reposted.  I think he probably has a list of .co.jp
domains, and is simply scraping addresses off their home pages.  In
fact, based on the email, I think the sender (as opposed to the
business he is representing) is not in the IT support business at all;
he's in the email marketing business.  Ie, a professional spammer,
albeit of higher class than the multi-level marketing/internet
pharmacy spammers.

    patrick> So we are not talking our average evil spammer here,
    patrick> merely an ignorant perhaps computer illiterate (what does
    patrick> it say for his IT business though?).  He also did not
    patrick> forge any headers or resorted to other fraudulent
    patrick> practices.

Huh?  Attempting to sell services one is not competent to provide is
not fraud in your book?

    patrick> Rubbish! There was a real person behind this mail not an
    patrick> automatic fraud spam registration.

A real person who did not give you the same amount of consideration,
but treated you as a spam-reading robot.  That's not a spectacular
evil on the scale of the Green Card Lawyers, but it is evil
nonetheless.



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