DemandMail Upgraded

I have been using the DemandMail autoresponder service
for more than 2 years and just wanted to share some
of my thoughts about this service.

1. Very Affordable - one of most least expensive
autoresponder service found on the web at just
$14.97 a month for 99 autoresponders.

2. Super Tech Support - I have had to email tech
support a couple of times during the last 2 years
and have always received a reply quickly. And, the
replies have always answered and resolved my issues.

3. Great Spam Policy - As with all legitimate online
business, DemandMail doesn't allow their service
to be used by or promoted by spammers. However
if a user is accused of spam, they do allow you to
prove your innocence and keep your accounts.
(Just be sure to keep all those emails from your
autoresponder service stating that someone just
subscribed - they are the proof you need if someone
complains. I know this from experience!)

4. Super Service - They have just upgraded to a new
system so that now you can log into your account
once and access all your autoresponders. No more
do you have to remember all the names of your
autoresponders and all of their passwords. You can
copy messages from one autoresponder to another,
send text or html and all subscribers are now
double opt-in.

In my book, DemandMail is a 5 star service and I highly
recommend them to anyone looking for a good
autoresponder service.

Susan

Another Victim?

First I must tell you that I have never used the services of Managed.com and therefore can not tell you how good they are or boast about their great technical support.

The truth is – I don’t know anything about their service or technical support.

So why am I writing a review?

Managed.com may be the second victim in the fraudulent use of my PayPal account and this review is neither a positive or negative review of the company or its service. Rather, this review is to state how they responded when I notified them directly about the unauthorized use of my account.

As the company that was the intended receiver of my money, I discovered their business and read their site. From reading their site I found that they claim to be “a leading provider of world-class dedicated hosting, complex managed solutions, high availability network architecture, network infrastructure management, and secure contents distribution for small businesses, non-profit organizations, and global enterprises.” And by reading their contact page I see they are based in California and have both a phone and fax number plus several email addresses so you can contact them.

Because the unauthorized user of my account didn’t purchase the PayPal refund guarantee on October 7 when they made their purchase (big surprise), I was not able to go through PayPal to request a refund. So when I discovered the transaction on October 8, I contacted the billing department directly, explained what had happened and requested a refund. I also reported the transaction to PayPal as being an unauthorized use of my account and changed just about everything on the account in an attempt to keep the account from being broken into again.

Now being a trusting and naive person, I hoped that requesting a refund within 24 hours of a purchase would be honored.

WRONG!

Below is a copy of the billing departments email reply to my request and only my email address has been omitted for this review. Also, please note that the phone number contained in this letter is not my phone number so please don't try to use it to call me.

----------------
Dear Susan Carroll,

Thank you for contacting Managed.com. Please be aware that we did not bill your PayPal account. A person logged into your account, and sent money directly to us, for an order they had placed. Also please note that this customer also used your information;

BillingName: Susan Carroll
BillingAddress: 16 N. Eddy
City: Fort Scott
D1: KS
ZipCode: 66701
D3: US
Telephone: 305-292-5964
Email: The email address I did have on my PayPal account was included.

If this is truly fraud, you may want to close your PayPal account, or change the password. Since you have already put in a pending investigation, and service was already set up for the customer, we cannot give you a direct refund. Please standby for PayPal's procedures.

Thank you.
Billing DeptManaged.com
----------------

Needless to say this was not the reply I had hoped for.

Now for the good news!

PayPal completed their investigation by October 10 and refunded my money.

Who will I do business with in the future?

Well, if I ever decide to purchase a product like what Managed.com sells, I don’t think I will go to them. While their reply may be good business from a corporate point of view, I like companies that have a little more compassion for others and a better refund policy.
The service could not have been set up for more than 48 hours (the reply came within 48 hours of the purchase) so a refund would have been nice. But since this company does not post a refund policy, I guess they don’t have one.

As for PayPal – I think they did a fantastic job. Some of their procedures still confuse me since I know they didn’t have time to receive the requested snail mail copy of my claim before they could start the investigation when they notified me that the investigation was completed and my money refunded. I am only guessing that they take fraud complaints seriously enough to investigate them while waiting on a paper copy of the complaint and that the paper copy is required by law.

I pray that nothing like this ever happens to you. But if it does, may it get straightened out just as quickly and successfully as mine did.

Susan

Guilty By Association

Yesterday I posted an announcement in the newsletter because I thought that it didn’t go out.

I was WRONG!

The mailing went out but I didn’t get it and neither did anyone else who uses the same ISP as I do for my personal email.

I am really upset by this and I’ll tell you why.

One of the autoresponder services I use to send out the newsletter mailings is DemandMail.com. I have used them for a couple of years and have been very happy with their inexpensive service because they allow me set up an unlimited number of autoresponder accounts for one low monthly fee AND they have fantastic tech support.

When I didn’t think my mailings were going out because I wasn’t getting them or the “mailing complete” messages I wrote tech support. I expected to wait about 24 hours to hear a response but got one in just a couple of hours.

According to them, I wasn’t getting my messages they were sending because my ISP was using Spam Cop. They had sent a message from their service, discovered the problem and had to use a different email account to respond to my trouble request.

I immediately wrote my ISP about the matter and requested they remove Spam Cop from my account. It took them about 4 hours to respond with the following – your trouble ticket has been closed and please send the error message you received so we can forward it to Spam Cop to correct the problem.

How can the trouble ticket be closed when I still have the problem?

What error message?

I, the intended receiver didn’t get an error message. I didn’t get any indication that I wasn’t getting some of my email? I checked my email account to see if they had placed my blocked messages in some special folder but found nothing.

Well, to make this long story longer:

1. I have re-opened the ticket and told them to keep it that way until I find out if there was any error message to my autoresponder service.
2. I have requested the error message from my autoresponder service.
3. I checked into Spam Cop and found that I had to go through Alexa to find their contact information.
4. I have sent Spam Cop an email reporting the problem.
5. I also found out that Spam Cop doesn’t block individual email accounts or filter on words. They block messages according to the IP of the sender. In other words, if you are using an autoresponder or hosting account to send out your mail, your mail may not be getting through if they have your services IP on their blacklist.
6. I also know that Spam Cop doesn’t send the email address of the person reporting spam to the service sending the email. Thus, the autoresponder or hosting service can not request proof of opt-in and can not request that you remove the person from your list. As a result, your account may be canceled even if you could have provided proof that the person had opted-in.
7. I also know that some of the “big” places that offer free email accounts and where we all get a lot of spam – like Yahoo and MSN are not blocked.
8. I know that if you aren’t getting all your email you may not know it. And if you do and try to find those that were blocked, you can’t find it.

There are only 8 people on my list who use the same ISP mailbox that I use. So I know those people won’t get my mailings.

But what about all the others? I have no idea which ISPs use Spam Cop so I have no idea how much of my list is not getting my mail.

Am I upset? YES!!!

I have been found guilty of sending spam to myself and others by someone I don’t know and who doesn’t give me the opportunity to defend myself. I have been blacklisted because of some report by a nameless person who may not even know they complained.

I am guilty by association with a service that provides contact information on every page and has a strict anti-spam policy. I am guilty by association because someone, somewhere reported spam sent by someone using that same service.

Was that person guilty of sending spam? I don’t know.

Was that person allowed to offer proof that they weren’t sending spam? No.

Is that person still using the same service? Probably not and here’s why:
“We get some complaints from SPAM Cop without the complainers email or name so we have no way to remove them from anyone's' list. We have had to delete several accounts from our system because of the heavy handed tactics of SPAM Cop.”

May your day be better than mine,
Susan

A Subscriber's Review Of A New Program

By now you've probably seen a ad for Mike Filsaime's
new ListDotCom list building program. Since I'm on
Mike mailing list, I've been getting email about it
for more than a week.

Now, I have joined other list building programs and
have never had much success with them so when I saw
what Mike's new program was, I dismissed it.

But now it seems that there are some points about
this program that need to be brought to your attention
in case you are considering it.

I received an email from Lamar Ownes on 10/3 and
another on 10/5 from Hodges Hines. Since Hodges is
both a friend and subscriber I am posting his
message to this blog.

Again, I have had no experience with this program
and am only sharing information that I have received
from others.

Susan
---------------------------------
Today's Review
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
I am sure by now a lot of you who are on other
marketing email lists have seen the ad from Mike Filsaime.
It is an ad that states you now have the opportunity to
build a list of thousands in a few days by referring others
to join under you.

I have to tell you that I almost fell for the hype myself
before realizing what the truth really is about this site.

To make matters worse for Filsaime and ListDotCom.com
I received this message form my Partner and Friend,
Lamar Owens.

QUOTE....
"Blew it and because I care about our relationship, I'm
asking you to disregard my previous email regarding the big
announcement. I also apologize and ask for your forgiveness.
Please do NOT join Mike Filsaime's listdotcom site and here
is why:

I trusted Mike Filsaime to do what he said he was going
to do and that was to help us build a list fast that we
could mail to everyday if we wanted through his new site.
He said it wouldn't cost a cent--He lied! We can't mail out
everyday and only if you pay him $80 bucks a month he will
allow you to mail every few days...

It sounded great and I fell for the story--turns out it’s too
good to be true.

I'm sorry, I apologize and I ask you NOT to join his list
site. I work hard to build my rapport with you and give you
quality information. Based on the information I was
given...I thought it was great.

Mike's version of "omission marketing" by not telling us
the whole story...is wrong. I asked him questions prior to
launch (via email) and he said all would be revealed on
launch.

I have list building techniques that I KNOW WORK-- My Optin
helps you grow your list(s) fast and I STAND BEHIND IT 100%

Explode Your Sales--10,000 Monthly Optin Leads Program
http://tinyurl.com/6td75

Thanks again...and I will surely be steering clear of Mike
Filsaime and NEVER promote anything of his EVER again.

Sincerely,
Lamar"
.....UNQUOTE

I am not into "poking anyone in the eye" or "spitting
poison" on someone for the sake of putting them down. It
has become hard enough in the marketing arena to make sales
without potential customers seeing us write about conflicts
we may have with other marketers.

What I am into is ETHICAL marketing the way it should be
done. There is no reason to lie to you or shoot you out a
sales letter that is blatant with lies. Hype sells but hype
is not always ethical in presentation. My suggestion to you
is to wait this one out until the dust settles.

What this is; is no more than a safelist that is being
built for Mike Filsaime on the backs of well known marketers
and you if you have joined and recommended others.

I have quoted my Partner Lamar and trust me if he says it
is a scam then be careful as you deal with Filsaime but if
you must be a part of this then go read a special report by
another well known marketer Kevin Bidwell. You can pick up
a copy of his report below.
http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/freelistexplosion?a=1996

My review for this week's product, a resounding
DUD-TO-THE-MAX.
------------------
This review was taken from
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
A PLUS FLASH REVIEW

To subscribe send an email to:
mailto:aplusflashreview@flash-phoenix.com?subject=Subscribe Me Now!
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

Dead Link Bloodhound

Have you ever clicked a link only to
get a page not found error?

Well, I know I have so today I pulled
out my dusty copy of Dead Link Bloodhound
to test the links on my newest page
http://www.friendswhocare.us/forum.htm

Now since I had copied all the links
on this page from other pages, I felt
confident that they would all work. You
can only imagine how surprised I was
whenI found that I had 2 dead links.

Well, I learned my lesson. I fixed the
links on the new page, checked the
links on the page I had copied them from -
and intend to keep my copy of Dead Link
Bloodhound out for awhile while I do some
more checking on some of my other pages.

I don't know why I haven't been using
this tool all along since it only takes a
couple of seconds to check all the links -
but I haven't.

Please don't make the same mistake I
made by not checking all the links on all
your pages. Broken links frustrate site
visitors and cost you customers.

If you have only a few pages with only a
few links you can check them manually.
But if you're like me and have more than
a few pages and lots of links, you need
a tool like Dead Link Bloodhound to get
the job done - fast.

To Your Success,
Susan

PS - It's a great inexpensive tool that more
of us should be using and it comes with full
resale rights.