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Well… I never thought I would actually get to interact with my very own SCAM artist! All kidding aside this was just too much fun. He pinged me on Skype and I was just “in a mood”… what follows is a transcript of the Skype conversation. (just to be clear, I’m James and the scammer is Philip, whom I’m now calling “Peggy”) 🙂 Enjoy.
11:54 AM Authorization requested:
Good Day My Name is Philip from Usa i work with the bank of America and there is a fund that was approved in your name so contact me via my address philipstarr20@yahoo.com
11:54 AM Authorization granted to Philip Starr
11:54 AM James Sommer
Hello? are you there?
12:49 PM Philip Starr
hello who plz?
12:51 PM James Sommer
You had just sent me a message regarding a bank of america fund?
12:52 PM Philip Starr
okay so what is your full name reconfirm that clear so that i can check on that
12:52 PM James Sommer
James Sommer
12:54 PM Philip Starr
okay listen a fund was issued in your name to be paid so i shall direct u very well on how to claim this plz would i know how old are u and what is your job?
12:55 PM James Sommer
who issued the fund? and how much is it?
12:56 PM Philip Starr
it was given out by connecticuts government and supported by bank of America the fund is 1.5million dollars
12:56 PM James Sommer
so let me get this straight… the Connecticut government wants to give me 1.5 million dollars?
12:57 PM Philip Starr
yes are you james soomer?
12:57 PM James Sommer
James Sommer yes
12:57 PM Philip Starr
yes we are right is your age 48 to 50years?
12:58 PM James Sommer
wow that is terrific… I did not know the State of Connecticut was so generous… yes I am 48 and I suppose you want my bank account information now?
12:59 PM Philip Starr
well it is by gratual means so that the fund is not misplaced
12:59 PM James Sommer
oh yes of course… we cannot have the fund misplaced
12:59 PM Philip Starr
what is your accupation and are u married?
12:59 PM James Sommer
I design lacy undergarments for Cocker Spaniels and I’m not married (what a surprise eh?)
1:00 PM Philip Starr
Okay did u have yahoo messenger address?
1:01 PM James Sommer
no, but I do have an brand new “OH BOY!” messenger address…
1:01 PM Philip Starr
okay send me your address now
1:01 PM James Sommer
which address?
1:01 PM Philip Starr
your email address any one you are using
1:02 PM James Sommer
what are you going to use it for?
1:02 PM Philip Starr
we shall be sending mail for betterment of this fund
1:03 PM James Sommer
okay here is my email address… ready?
1:03 PM Philip Starr
ok
1:04 PM James Sommer
HowStupidDoYouThinkIAm@TrySpammingSomeoneElse.com
1:04 PM Philip Starr
what did u mean this is real and never fake okay so if u are not interested do let me know maybe we have to see each other for u to beleieve right
1:06 PM James Sommer
Sure thing… why dont you come by my office I’m sure you live close to me here in California right?
1:06 PM Philip Starr
yes i am in connecticuts right now and my duty is to direct u very well on this fund so why u doubt me?
1:07 PM James Sommer
I guess I shouldn’t.. I mean you do have that very distinctive east coast accent… it’s a dead giveaway for people who live in Connecticut.
1:08 PM Philip Starr
so what u mean that we are fake? okay maybe we have to forget this
1:10 PM James Sommer
No no.. its fine… actually I would prefer to meet you in person Where is your office? Which city are you in?
1:11 PM Philip Starr
all i need is to give u all information of this fund and it actually you are coming that would be nice
1:11 PM James Sommer
Yes that would be perfect, I would prefer to do this in person
1:12 PM Philip Starr
my address is Goshen conneticut 06756 USA u dont need to worry on this okay
1:12 PM James Sommer
oh that’s perfect… you are very close to me
1:13 PM Philip Starr
the fund will be deliver to u or transfer to your bank account yes
1:13 PM James Sommer
I live in California which is right next to Connecticut.. I can get on my bike and be there in just a couple of hours… which day would you like to meet? What works best for you? I’ll have all of my bank account information with me.
1:14 PM Philip Starr
after i find out all it will takes u to claim this fund i shall like u come in personal
1:15 PM James Sommer
yes I will like to come in personal too.
1:15 PM Philip Starr
good
1:15 PM James Sommer
what is your address in Goshen?
1:16 PM Philip Starr
silver plain 234 now u know i am serous
1:17 PM James Sommer
Oh I never doubted it, I have relatives that live there too! We go watch the Connecticut Robins play baseball! What a small world eh?
1:18 PM Philip Starr
u see that would be all nice now send me ur email address so that i can send u mail on what u need to do i will send you the document you need to get this delivery okay
1:18 PM James Sommer
sure thing… here it is… ready?
1:19 PM Philip Starr
send it
1:19 PM James Sommer
YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe@gmail.com there you go… Gosh I’m so excited to get $1.5 million dollars!
1:19 PM Philip Starr
this is not kiddind
1:20 PM James Sommer
Oh I’m not kiddind either
1:20 PM Philip Starr
well lets call it a day bye for now
1:20 PM James Sommer
Okay then… hey, great talking with you! good luck with your next victim…
Take care!
Bye Bye now
🙂
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As a longtime reader of GQ magazine, Dylan Boyd subscribed to The Hound—the magazine’s recently launched email newsletter—with high expectations. “So as I opened the email and took a gander,” he writes at The Email Wars, “I was more than greatly disappointed to get what I would associate with a Sunday newspaper ad circular.”
The short publication included five components:
- A promotion of “suiting events” at several Bloomingdale’s stores.
- A Gillette-sponsored contest for basketball tickets.
- A plug for Phaidon Design Classics, a three-volume set of books sold for $110 by Amazon.com.
- A brief Q&A in which Brett—GQ’s style correspondent—advises a reader to use a hair-sculpting paste made (surprise!) by Gillette.
- An invitation to interact with GQ at Twitter and Facebook.
“What were they thinking?” he asks. “A newsletter is something that shares articles, stories, content, ideas and information that keeps a subscriber in connection with the company that they opted in to.”
To help you ensure your newsletter is a valuable resource for readers, Boyd offers these suggestions:
Don’t treat it like a press release or an offer. “This is a relationship-development channel folks, not a pitch machine,” he says. “Save your targeted offers for another day.”
Create relevant, original content that clearly benefits the customer. “Recycling articles, blog posts and stories,” he notes, “does not deliver on the promise of news.”
Don’t let them down when they open your email up. When developing a cool customer perk like an e-newsletter, make sure it’s packed with relevant info—and not just promos.
Source: The Email Wars
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The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema of Austin, Texas, encourages its patrons to enjoy dinner and a movie—at the same time. “The theater is laid out like a traditional movie theater,” explains the company’s website, “except every other row of seats has been replaced with a long narrow table for your food and drinks.”
A discreet ordering system keeps distractions to a minimum, as does a policy of warning—and, eventually, ejecting—noisy customers who disrupt the film. In a post at the Church of the Customer Blog, Jackie Huba highlights an Alamo Drafthouse PSA, for which the theater recruited a former Texas governor: Confronted with a rowdy customer, she throws him onto the sidewalk. The PSA reads: “Don’t talk during the movie… or Ann Richards will take your ass out.”
Importantly, the venue stands behind its stern words. After a recent screening of Where the Wild Things Are, Tim League, the theater’s founder, was confronted by a man who became irate when a waiter shushed him. The outraged moviegoer followed League to the parking lot, punched the windshield of League’s car, and promised never to return.
“Fabulous,” responds League at his blog. “You, sir, are exactly the type of patron that I never want to see at an Alamo Drafthouse ever again. People who continue to talk when the movie has started are impolite, self-absorbed losers who were never taught common decency by their parents.”
According to Huba, we need more Tim Leagues—those who choose to protect their best customers from obnoxious behavior, rather than catering to those who ruin the experience for everyone. “The customer is always right,” she notes, “if it’s the right customer.”
Source: Church of the Customer Blog
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In two short years, Lady GaGa has become an international phenomenon—selling millions of albums, breaking Billboard records and earning Grammys. According to Jackie Huba, she has also demonstrated a natural ability to cultivate evangelistic fans: “While her performance art-style stage shows and bizarre outfits have garnered much buzz, it’s her loyalty marketing that may sustain her for years.”
Here are a few things small businesses could learn from Lady GaGa:
Bring your fans into the fold by giving them a special name. “Gaga doesn’t like the word ‘fan’ so she calls them her ‘Little Monsters,’ named after her album ‘The Fame Monster,'” notes Huba. “She even tattooed ‘Little Monsters’ on her arm and tweeted the pic to fans[,] professing love for them.” The name doesn’t have to be whimsical or bizarre—Maker’s Mark, for instance, uses the straightforward term “Ambassador.”
Make them feel like they’re rock stars, too. During her stage shows, Lady GaGa always places a call to someone in the audience. “She dials the number onstage, the fan screams out, is located and they are put up on a big screen,” says Huba. “While the rest of audience goes bananas, she invites the fan to have a drink with her after the show.” By giving your fans special—and very public—attention, you make them part of the show.
Lady GaGa knows how to build long-term loyalty for her brand—and you, too, can use her tricks to do the same for your own.
Source: Church of the Customer Blog.
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“I receive email for very different reasons than others in my life,” writes Kara Trivunovic at the Email Experience Council blog. “I subscribe to just about any email I can, because I like to see what people are doing. More specifically, how marketers are targeting their customers, leveraging data, addressing rendering challenges and motivating recipients to open, among many other things.”
The typical subscriber, however, doesn’t share the professional curiosity of an email marketer. To gain a recipient’s in-the-trenches perspective, Trivunovic decided to quiz her husband on his email likes and dislikes. She offers these guidelines for marketers based on what she learned:
Ongoing campaigns must deliver on subscriber expectations. “My hubby tells me that [he often] subscribes for something specific, but if the subsequent emails don’t grab him right away, he unsubscribes.”
Overly restrictive terms and conditions kill interest. That tantalizing offer becomes much less appealing when reams of fine print make it virtually unattainable. “[N]othing drives him more crazy than [receiving] a great subject line and headline about getting free nights at a great hotel,” she notes, “only to open the message to find that there isn’t a snowball’s chance he can go.”
If images don’t render, recipients might blame the sender, not the ISP. When AOL blocks images from Mandalay Bay, Trivunovic’s husband assumes the hotel—and not the ISP—is at fault.
Ask away. Don’t forget to ask real people what they think about your emails. Although the information you gain will be anecdotal, you might still catch something your testing has missed.
Source: Email Experience Council
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Just because something is currently labeled a best-practice doesn’t mean it’s written in stone, says DJ Waldow in an article at MarketingProfs. “[W]e can find and spit back best-practices for most email-marketing-related questions; however, I nearly always find marketers who ‘break the rules’ with tremendous success,” he explains.
Here are a couple of commonly held best-practices, and the reason they might not be the best thing for your campaigns, according to Waldow:
“Don’t use ALL CAPS in your subject line.” Overstock.com breaks this rule on a consistent basis, and for a good reason: It works for the company’s audience. “I had the chance to meet a member of the Overstock email-marketing team,” reports Waldow, “and he informed me that they have done (and continue to do) extensive subject-line testing.” Contrary to conventional wisdom, those emails that use all capital letters significantly outperform those that do not, he says.
“Don’t use one large image, especially if there isn’t alt text.” Despite the omnipresence of image blocking, Apple’s email messages unapologetically defy these edicts. “So, what gives?” asks Waldow. “How does Apple get away with that?” In a conversation with the men responsible for the company’s email marketing campaign, he discovered some tweaks were planned, but that the campaigns worked because customers’ high level of trust of Apple emails meant subscribers were more likely to auto-enable images.
There are exceptions to every rule. Best-practices exist to guide your campaigns—not to dictate what they must or must not do. The best solution for finding what works for your subscribers is still to test, test and test again.
Source: MarketingProfs.
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You have a great product or service, and you do your best to create an exceptional customer experience. Despite your efforts, though, you encounter difficult customers with more frequency than you’d expect. What gives? In a post at the Conversation Agent blog, Valeria Maltoni suggests 10 reasons this might be happening. Here are a few:
Your customers resent that you’re the only game in town, or one of their limited options. “You may feel you have a captive audience,” she says, “but realize that it takes a special effort not to be arrogant in those [sic] circumstance, and your customers don’t like the treatment.”
You’re telling your customers which questions to ask. You steer the conversation in a certain direction, but it isn’t where the customer wants to go. “If you were in court,” she says, “they might say you were leading the witness. Allow customers to say what they want to say. Maybe ask clarifying questions.”
You don’t follow up on feedback. If you acknowledge a customer’s feedback but seem to sit on the information, it’s going to create friction.
No matter what you do, you’ll always have to deal with difficult customers. “It’s not personal,” says Maltoni, “let’s face it, there may not be a way of pleasing them. Does that mean you should stop trying?”
Source: Conversation Agent.
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You’ve probably made a practice of asking customers to review your products, but are you using their praise to its full advantage? “Recently,” says Kelly Lorenz at the Bronto blog, “I have seen an uptick in retailers utilizing customer reviews to sell products in their emails.”
Why? Because user-generated reviews create a more personal connection. They’re especially effective, Lorenz argues, because they counteract the inherent detachment of the online experience. “When people make a purchase online,” she notes, “they lose that sense of touch and interaction with the product, which can cause some hesitation.” Lorenz points to a series of Cooking.com email messages that highlight positive feedback in ways like these:
- Placing reviews directly beside a product shot and description.
- Noting the percentage of customers who recommend the product.
- Displaying customer ratings on a 5-star scale.
- Providing an easy link to all of a product’s reviews.
As impressed as she is by the company’s use of customer reviews, Lorenz argues it still has room for improvement. “Cooking.com may also consider adding a ‘review this product’ call-to-action next to the reviews in the email as well,” she says.
Accentuate the positive. Turning a fence-sitter into a customer might be as simple as letting your existing clientele speak for you in your emails and sing the praises of your products.
Source: Bronto.
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Especially for those of us trying to reduce our negative impact on the planet, the volume of waste generated by food packaging is discouraging. Cardboard cartons, plastic bottles and vacuum-sealed pouches—a single meal might produce a pile of trash. You can recycle, certainly, but it would be nicer to limit what winds up in a bin of any color.
That’s why luncheon meats sold by Hillshire Farms hold special appeal, not because of the product itself but because of the standard-issue Gladware it comes in. Simply peel the label off of the lid, and you have small storage container—branded as Glad—that can be used again and again.
A post at the Recipeeps 4 Us blog notes that the decision to purchase Hillshire Farms ham and turkey was cinched by the container. “I liked the idea of being able to reuse the packaging instead of just throwing it away,” the writer says, “plus I needed some more Gladware that size anyway. The price was right in line with all the rest of the lunch meat, as well.”
Hillshire Farms delivers Marketing Inspiration by giving customers an added incentive to choose its products; they not only cut down on waste, they get a brand-name item that’s probably next to the cold cuts on their shopping list.
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Some time ago, we highlighted a MarketingProfs article in which Michael Antman cautioned against making word-of-mouth (WOM) strategies the primary element in your marketing mix. “He raises reasonable points about the limitations of WOM,” says Deborah Eastman in her response. “[A]fter all, it can’t completely replace other forms of marketing communications. However, we would be remiss to ignore the impact of WOM.”
Here are some of the reasons she considers peer recommendations indispensable:
- While WOM can’t be controlled, it can be managed. “The root of WOM is the customer experience,” says Eastman, “therefore, it is most effective when a part of a customer-centric culture focused on building customer loyalty.”
- The WOM from customers who are loyal—not simply satisfied—cannot be easily subverted. “Loyalty is more than satisfaction,” she says. “It stems from ordinary services delivered exceptionally well or exceptional services delivered well.”
- Social media has given WOM limitless reach. “[B]usinesses thrive on referrals,” she notes, “and online media allows referrals to spread from across the block to across the world.”
- WOM adds to your bottom line. According to Eastman, each “promoter” in the computer hardware industry spends more than and helps to acquire half of a new customer; a “detractor,” however, can lose a business one new customer.
“It’s important to remember,” argues Eastman, “that WOM isn’t meant to replace advertising, public relations, and other marketing efforts—instead, it’s one integral element of an effective marketing strategy.”
Source: MarketingProfs.
Well… I never thought I would actually get to interact with my very own SCAM artist! All kidding aside this was just too much fun. He pinged me on Skype and I was just “in a mood”… what follows is a transcript of the Skype conversation. (just to be clear, I’m James and the scammer is Philip, whom I’m now calling “Peggy”) 🙂 Enjoy.
