Eircom spam

eth0_

Just got spammed from eircom into an account only my friends know the address of. Promoting their new talk time package, subject:
'Line and calls from just EUR29.99* per month'

Anyone else get this? It came from a Spam company, newsweaver.ie

Sleepy

Please, please, please take action on this. I'm sure I'm not alone in loving the idea of Eircom being done in a spam case!

eth0_

Originally posted by Sleepy
Please, please, please take action on this. I'm sure I'm not alone in loving the idea of Eircom being done in a spam case!

How do I take action?

spongebob

rbl.org to block the spammers .. newsweaver

data protection commissioner to find out how they got your address and to remove it from all lists

mneylon

You can also submit spam to spamcop.net

Spunog UIE

i got an email from them too, can't remember what it was as i deleted it, but it was a newsweaver.ie thing too. The email address it was sent to was one i had made just for eircom a/c a while back.

Sleepy

Isn't there some means of prosecuting someone for sending unsolicited spam? I thought the government had introduced some kind of bill regarding it.

liamo

If you believe that you've been spammed then you certainly may report them. If your personal information is being used for marketing purposes without your permission then they're breaking the law. Specifically, they may only use your personal information for the purposes for which it was supplied to them.

I reported an SMS Spam to the Data Protection Commissioner last year (as did a number of others) and I got great satisfaction from the various updates I got back culminating in the Data Commissioner finding against the company in question and basically telling them to stop, or else!

Click Here to see a summary of his Annual Report for 2003. Search for "Realm Communications" for his findings in respect of my complaint.

The company in question, newsweaver.ie, appears to be above board and have a page related to spam here which makes me wonder if you perhaps omitted to untick a checkbox when creating the account. They also say that their "Remove" link does work and they supply an email address to which you can report spam.

Given all this, I'd be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and would simply ask to be removed.

Regards,

Liam

AARRRGH

Not trying to be an arse here, but wouldn't you have saved yourself a lot of time and hassle if you'd just deleted the e-mail instead of reading it and then posting about it here on boards???

liamo

dublindude,

Under most circumstances you'd be right.

However, I think the point is that this wasn't the usual "Get larger <insert appendage of choice >" spam from the other side of the world. It was a direct marketing email from an identifiable company in Ireland who - if they are, in fact, engaging in spam activities - can be taken to task for it.

Regards,

Liam

tuxy

spam is a big problem someone has to take a stand against it

Konix

2 words....

It's Eircom.

secret_squirrel

Got this today too...think its from the address I used from my eircom.net account years ago. Tried the unsubscribe link. Itching to get one more mail from them so I can report them for spamming.

At least you can unsubscribe - unlike their once a month post and phone spams begging me to return that they do.

Seth Brundle

Originally posted by Konix
2 words....

It's Eircom.

Don't you mean €ircon?

Originally posted by secret_squirrel
At least you can unsubscribe - unlike their once a month post and phone spams begging me to return that they do.

I also recieved this (twice) spam at a domain I control - can't tell if the original recipient subscribed so I just deleted them.
I didn't bother clicking unsubscribe as I myself recieve an email every two months telling me about my forthcoming bill. I get sent this as I registered with them when I tried to pay my bill online (only after this did I find out that they didn't accept credit cards!).
Since then I have sent numerous emails insisting that they stop sending me these mails as it my bill is bad enough without them joyfully emailing me about it. They still come!

secret_squirrel

Originally posted by kbannon
Since then I have sent numerous emails insisting that they stop sending me these mails as it my bill is bad enough without them joyfully emailing me about it. They still come!

Report them as spamming - attaching all your sent emails as proof.

BrianD

Anyone else get this? It came from a Spam company, newsweaver.ie

First of all, Newsweaver is NOT a spam company. It is a reputable Irish company based in Cork who have a software application to produce and distribute newsletters to e-mail lists. Quite a neat application, I looked at it myself for our own e-mail list. Eircom is one of their customers. I suggest you correct your erroneous remark that Newsweaver is a spam company before you land yourself at the end of a summons.

It is highly irresponsible for anybody to report a company/domain to an anti-spam company such as SpamCop without following a procedure to remove yourself from the Eircom mailing list first. If you are not getting results then go to the Data Commisioner and make your case.

Remember Eircom is a publicy identifyable company and the chances are that you are one of their customers. They have every right to communicate with you with products and services that may be of interest. All you need to do is opt-out of their communication lists. (though in recent times I think the rules have changed to 'opting-in' instead of out) You need to be vigilant when filling in forms.

I would hazard a guess that you have given this address to Eircom in the past and have forgotten about it.

I work for a company who had their domain temporaily blocked by SpamCop as a spammer. The basis of the block was one report from an individual germany who had received spam that had spoofed our domain name. It required a phone call to the States to unblock us. This just isn't acceptable.

A bit more maturity is required by some of the posters on this thread.

eth0_

Originally posted by BrianD

I would hazard a guess that you have given this address to Eircom in the past and have forgotten about it.

No, trust me, I haven't. It's an address only a handful of my friends know. I have never and would never give eircom my email address, I have no dealings with them and never will.

Sorry for my mistake over newsweaver, it was an honest mistake and I retract what I said about them being a spam company.

Seth Brundle

Originally posted by BrianD
It is highly irresponsible for anybody to report a company/domain to an anti-spam company such as SpamCop without following a procedure to remove yourself from the Eircom mailing list first.

well as I have mentioned, I have repeatedly instructed them to remove my email address from their system but they don't. It shouldn't have to be a matter that is referred to the data commissioner!

mneylon

Originally posted by BrianD
I work for a company who had their domain temporaily blocked by SpamCop as a spammer. The basis of the block was one report from an individual germany who had received spam that had spoofed our domain name. It required a phone call to the States to unblock us. This just isn't acceptable.

I think you are misinformed. Spamcop does not list solely on the domain name, nor does it block based on one report.
The blocking is based on the IP of the mail server combined with the domain name AND the number of reports for a domain.

BrianD

I can confirm that we were blocked on the basis of a single report from a German resident. We were amazed but they delisted us immediately when contacted.

How I actually found out we were blocked is that mails from my work account to my personal account (IOL) were being blocked. It turns out that IOL use SpamCop (and still lets spam through).

kbannon - perhaps you haven't followed their unsub procedure correctly. At the same time, every company is capable of c**k ups and I can understand it is annoying if you continue to receive e-mails. Having said that, an e-mail a month is not the end of the world.

Paulw

Originally posted by BrianD
Having said that, an e-mail a month is not the end of the world.

Sure, one email a month is not bad ... from one company. One email a month from 60 companies is 60 a month ... and then that adds up.

I use Eudora for email, and it has it's on built in junk filters.

BrianD

Agreed. Having said that it is relatively straightforward to get unsubbed from these companies including Eircom. You just have to go and do it instead of whinging about it on this board and making all sorts of wild statements. At the same time some legitimate compamied may not be very good at unsubbing you either but I still wouldn't going to the lengths that are suggested here. I wouldn't classify these types of campanies as spammers and put them in the same league as the pills and thrills merchants. A reasonable applroach to the issue will get you off their lists - I have never had a problem unsubbing from an Irish company.

mneylon

Originally posted by BrianD
I have never had a problem unsubbing from an Irish company.

I think you may be missing the point.

Spam/UCE costs the sender next to nothing. The recipient pays.

If you have not subscribed to a list you should not be forced into unsubscribing.

It is a wholly different matter if you have/had a relationship with a company, such as Eircom.

Another problem in a lot of cases is that the offending email neither contains any evidence of where the email address was acquired, nor provides information on removal.

For example, my details are in a number of databases as I have subscribed to various information sources. The owners of these databases may use the email addresses to send marketing, but it always states clearly WHY I am getting the email. If I do not want it I simply unsubscribe.

There is also a legal difference between a work email email address and a personal one. Legally companies are "allowed" to send information to other companies (with certain restrictions), but this is not the case of personal addresses. Of course any of this legislation will be ignored by the major sources of spam (ie. Korea, China and your "friendly" open relay).

sceptre

The nice thing about Irish spam (or rather getting rid of Irish spam) is that there are (legal) procedures for stopping it that will actually work. Regardless of one email a month not being much, if you get a one-a-month unwanted email from any company that wants to send you a one-a-month email it can mount up reasonably quickly.

I'd report it to the Data Protection Commissioner (as I would with any spam received from an irish company, the fact that it's Eircom through a mailing company is immaterial). If it's an error, the company in question can justify the error to the Data Protection Commissioner. In this case they can also try to explain how they got and why they used an address you say you never supplied to any company. If Newsweaver are a respectable Irish company they'll have procedures for checking this and will take the time to do so (as they're legally bound to). If they don't they're just a crowd of spammers, no better than our friends in Korea who are trying to sell me blue pills every second day.

BrianD

I don't think I am missing the point and we are straying into a general debate about spam and unsolicited e-mail rather then the specific case where an Irish individual has received a mail from an Irish phone company that they have or had a customer-supplier relationship with.

The fact of the matter is that it is relatively straightforward to get unsubbed by Eircom if you follow the procedure. It's not reasonable to call their e-mails spam or to blacklist them until you have done so. That's not to say that Eircom - or another company - will do it immediately, forget to or make some other cock up. I haven't seen the Eircom e-mail but I would guess that it complies with the various requirements that you state

sceptre

Originally posted by BrianD
I haven't seen the Eircom e-mail but I would guess that it complies with the various requirements that you state

If (and note as I said above that my post above was based on this "if") the email address has not been received by the company concerned through the individual (customer or not) giving the address to the company in any way, then it certainly does not. In that case, based on that "if", it's perfectly reasonable to call the mail spam. Especially if (there's another "if" here) eth0_ can say "I have never and would never give eircom my email address, I have no dealings with them and never will" with a full degree of veracity. The Data Protection Acts and Statutory Instrument 535 (2003) are there for a reason.

Nice and simple.

On the other hand if she's ever been an Eircom customer the matter's a little more complicated. However, as I said above, the nice thing about Irish marketing email (spam or non-spam) is that we've rules to regulate it that we can actually enforce. Pulling an email address from the air (if it's never been supplied to that company) is still a no-no, especially if you're not a customer.

spongebob

Eircom are member of the Irish Direct Marketing Association and IF in breach of their charter you should complain to them as well.

Note This Here

"Regulations that came into effect in November 2003 place certain restrictions on unsolicited contact by electronic communication means for marketing purposes. This includes contact by telephone (landline & mobile), fax, email[1] and SMS."

They have A Regulatory Committee, see Here

First you complain to the offender as per their code of practice. You must contact them to get that a copy , they have recently hidden it on their website. Do post a link in here if you do find it in there

"11.00 COMPLAINTS
10.10 Consumers who feel that they have grounds for complaint under the terms of the
Code and against a member of the Irish direct Marketing Association should write, in
the first instance, to the member firm concerned, at the address indicated in the
member’s advertisement catalogue or other offer."

The Eircom contact who deals with IDMA matters is Lisa O Rourke , thats lorourke@eircom.ie Tel: 017012207 . Lisa also has to deal with unsolicited Winback calls which are also in breach of the IDMA code of practise in some cases.....say if they don't identify themselves immediately .

M