Vegas Frontier and FortuneLounge Spam

[mary]

GM, that's not my real email address, but it's good to point that out if anybody else JOINS ME IN MY PAIN!

Three more this afternoon....

Let me emphasize some points:

*I am not complaining about real opt-in emailings. I get the casino's newsletter for their members and I'm ok with that.

*I have tried to unsubscribe via the provided links. It may or may not have had the effect of multiplying my torment. It certainly hasn't stopped it.

*I am forwarding them all to vpops@fortunelounge.com
I have yet to receive the courtesy of a reply to my email, but perhaps things are getting a bit flooded there.

*I've sent them to the spam@fortunelounge.com address as well. No replies from that address and of course it has had no effect.

*This has been going on in increasing severity for several months. Fortune lounge representatives have made statements in several fora that this problem would be fixed. This clearly has not happened.

Return-Path: <b.email.wbs.61.1.82585@w6.123rickey.com>
Received: from rly-xb04.mx.aol.com (rly-xb04.mail.aol.com [172.20.64.50]) by air-xb03.mail.aol.com (v107.13) with ESMTP id MAILINXB33-aa4336e29878; Sun, 25 Sep 2005 13:47:17 -0400
Received: from w6.123rickey.com (w6.123rickey.com [64.246.32.211]) by rly-xb04.mx.aol.com (v107.13) with ESMTP id MAILRELAYINXB410-aa4336e29878; Sun, 25 Sep 2005 13:47:04 -0400
To: mary@aol.com
From: "no deposit required" <claire@123skidoo.com>
Subject: 750 free chips
Message-Id: <200509251127670247.82585.61@w6.123rickey.com>
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2005 12:44:07 -0500
X-Priority: 1
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"
X-AOL-IP: 64.246.32.211
X-AOL-SCOLL-SCORE: 1:2:237908117:10737418
X-AOL-SCOLL-URL_COUNT: 5


Return-Path: <b.email.wbs.64.1.73764@w1.slohjkir.com>
Received: from rly-xj04.mx.aol.com (rly-xj04.mail.aol.com [172.20.116.41]) by air-xj04.mail.aol.com (v107.13) with ESMTP id MAILINXJ41-515433700d9a6; Sun, 25 Sep 2005 15:56:28 -0400
Received: from w1.slohjkir.com (w1.slohjkir.com [207.44.216.107]) by rly-xj04.mx.aol.com (v107.13) with ESMTP id MAILRELAYINXJ41-515433700d9a6; Sun, 25 Sep 2005 15:56:09 -0400
To: mary@aol.com
From: "no deposit required" <claire@123skidoo.com>
Subject: 750 free chips
Message-Id: <200509251127678165.73764.64@w1.slohjkir.com>
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2005 14:56:05 -0500
X-Priority: 1
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"
X-AOL-IP: 207.44.216.107
X-AOL-SCOLL-SCORE: 1:2:237908117:10737418

Return-Path: <b.email.wbs.65.1.46530@w7.123rickey.com>
Received: from rly-xa06.mx.aol.com (rly-xa06.mail.aol.com [172.20.64.42]) by air-xa04.mail.aol.com (v107.13) with ESMTP id MAILINXA44-6bc433701e732c; Sun, 25 Sep 2005 16:00:48 -0400
Received: from w7.123rickey.com (w7.123rickey.com [64.246.32.229]) by rly-xa06.mx.aol.com (v107.13) with ESMTP id MAILRELAYINXA66-6bc433701e732c; Sun, 25 Sep 2005 16:00:39 -0400
To: mary@aol.com
From: "no deposit required" <claire@123skidoo.com>
Subject: 750 free chips
Message-Id: <200509251127678261.46530.65@w7.123rickey.com>
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2005 14:57:41 -0500
X-Priority: 1
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"
X-AOL-IP: 64.246.32.229
X-AOL-SCOLL-SCORE: 1:2:237908117:10737418
X-AOL-SCOLL-URL_COUNT: 5


X-AOL-SCOLL-URL_COUNT: 5

[mary]

If you're as mad as I am, you might want to check out Spam Cop.

http://www.spamcop.net/anonsignup.shtml

[Casinomeister]

Originally Posted by mary

*I've sent them to the spam@fortunelounge.com address as well. No replies from that address and of course it has had no effect...

I believe Spam@FortuneAffiliates.com is the correct address, Mary.

[GrandMaster]

Fortune Affiliates gives Complaints@FortuneAffiliates.com as the e-mail address to be used for complaints.

[fortunelounge]

Originally Posted by mary

*I am forwarding them all to vpops@fortunelounge.com
I have yet to receive the courtesy of a reply to my email, but perhaps things are getting a bit flooded there.

mary; I have not received any of these mails. All mails addressed to this mail address go into a priority mailbox.

Please either send them again or use the PM facility on this site.

I have received confirmation from Slickstreet Marketing that the publisher will ensure that unsubscribes are honored.

VP Operations
Fortune Lounge

[Casinomeister]

Hi Wim,

Thanks!

But I think what is getting people riled up is not so much the problem of unsubscribing, but receiving a spammy email in the first place.

I have an account at a number of casinos. I should never ever receive an email from anyone concerning these casinos unless it is coming directly from these casinos. I should never receive an ad for any casino (especially those I have an account at) unless I request one. And I never do.

But I receive spammy emails everyday. 98% of the time I hit delete. When I get pissed off, I send them off to the affiliate manager. Screw the unsubscribe, unsubscribe is a misnomer anyway. There was no subscription in the fist place. Screw the "if you received this email in error blah blah..." my email address was spidered off of Casinomeister.

Affiliates under no circumstances should be emailing anyone their "ads" unless it is through their own resources by having a "Closed-Loop Opt-In". For instance a real newsletter that real people subscribe to.
http://www.spamhaus.org/mailinglists.html

I'm unsure how affiliate managers can manage this, because they have no idea whether or not an affiliate will spam their affiliate code to a kagillion players until after the fact. And then it's too late.

[greedygirl]

The obvious spam-annoyance issue aside, this can only serve to infuriate responsible publishers.

Folks like Casinomeister, Got2Bet, WinnerOnline and others (yep, including my home base), have been working hard for years to cull DOUBLE-OPT member lists. We have done the hard yards in gaining traffic, without resorting to devious, unethical means. Because of crap like what is described in this thread, we are having to waste time, effort and in some instances, money, to get these DOUBLE-OPT newsletters and other emails through to our members.

Example: Someone signs up for membership at GoneGambling (sorry--I'm only using this as the example, as this is my own experience, though I'm certain it is similar for Bryan and Spear). When they sign up for membership, they also check the box asking if they'd like to receive the newsletter as well as other emails, which come DIRECTLY and SOLELY from GoneGambling. The new member checks this box. A few months later, the member decides for whatever reason they no longer wish to be a member of GoneGambling. Rather than notify GoneGambling that they would like to unsubscribe, they simply contact their ISP, claiming spam. Depending on what ISP they use, we can be blacklisted based upon the one complaint. With AOL, we've been fighting for the past two years on this. Each time we get back on their white list, a new claim is made and we have to start the whole process over of being removed from the blacklist. As a result, we no longer accept AOL email addy's on new registrations.

Further, there was a time when buying mail drops (not to be confused with list-buying), was an invaluable tool to develop new traffic. This has all been shut down, due to seasoned spammers.

This sort of practice is damaging to the industry and is a slap in the face to those who deliver traffic responsibly to the casinos. There just has to be a point in time where casino marketing chooses to do the right thing and not just the "money" thing.

[mary]

vpops, please consult with your IT department. I've fowarded 15 spams to you in the last three days; I've recieved no bounce response. You could ver well have spam filtering in place that you don' know about, if somebody else set up your account and computer.

I've posted the routing info and some copies of the email in this thread, so you have this information available right here.

I will PM all 15.

[mary]

Screw it, I'm not getting paid for this.

I'm not going to spend my time breaking 15 spams into 30 PMs (size limits).

If Fortune Lounge and Belle Rock Group are serious about their anti-spam policy, they can have their own employees drop their spam filters and see what they get. Getting the spam isn't difficult; it's not getting it that's hard. Their employees can test the opt-out provision using hotmail addresses. ECOGRA can easily test for compliance as well.

Going forward, any more spam I recieve from Shawn Bercovitz aka Shawn Richards of "Casino Prophet" I will post here in its entirety with the heading info. That way, my fellow players can evaluate it against their own mailboxes, and anybody who wants to do anything about it will have it all in one place. It will be so much more convenient to staff at Fortune Lounge, Belle Rock, and ECOGRA this way.

I won't be wasting my time emailing anything to Fortune Lounge or Belle Rock. It's not my responsibility to debug their spam filtering setups.

It's not the responsibility of anybody recieving spam to fix this situation. I'm disappointed in Fortune Lounge that this is happening at all and I'm disappointed that they seem to think it's the world's responsibility to track it down.

[dominique]

Originally Posted by greedygirl

We have done the hard yards in gaining traffic, without resorting to devious, unethical means. Because of crap like what is described in this thread, we are having to waste time, effort and in some instances, money, to get these DOUBLE-OPT newsletters and other emails through to our members.

This sort of practice is damaging to the industry and is a slap in the face to those who deliver traffic responsibly to the casinos. There just has to be a point in time where casino marketing chooses to do the right thing and not just the "money" thing.

This is a big beef of mine, too.

Freaking spammers have made it almost impossible for legitimate, double opt in newsletters to make it.