Amy Fitzpatrick spam?

GlanzaTRD · 21-09-2008 5:03pm #1

Has anyone else been receiving unsolicited email, supposedly from the www.searchforamy.com website run by Christopher Fitzpatrick?

While I sympathise, its got so annoying at this stage that one person in work has filed a complaint with the Data Protection Comissioner after getting 20 in one week.

marco murphy · 21-09-2008 5:11pm

What are the emails saying?

GlanzaTRD · 21-09-2008 5:17pm

While not containing anything offensive, I can see how people could get pissed off with the same message clogging up their email accounts day after day.

helpfindamy1@gmail.com wrote:

Inline Attachment Follows

www.searchforamy.com

A small request: All you are asked to do is keep this circulating.

Dear God, I pray that Amy Fitzpatrick is found. Amen
<img height="751" width="479">
All you are asked to do is keep this circulating even if it's to one more person.
Irish girl Amy Fitzpatrick went missing in the tourist resort of Riviera Del Sol on the Costa Del Sol on New Years night 01.01.2008 at approx 10pm. Please visit www.searchforamy.com to view Amy's photo and download a copy of Amy's appeal poster and pass it to everyone you know. More photo's can be found on Amy's Dad Christopher Fitzpatrick's bebo page www.bebo.com/helpfinda

Help us in the search for Amy Fitzpatrick

www.searchforamy.com

latenia · 21-09-2008 5:24pm

GlanzaTRD wrote: »

While I sympathise, its got so annoying at this stage that one person in work has filed a complaint with the Data Protection Comissioner after getting 20 in one week.

What a prick. Does he really care more about having to click his mouse three times extra a day than a family who are desperate to do anything they possibly can to find their missing daughter?

Davei141 · 21-09-2008 5:30pm

latenia wrote: »

What a prick. Does he really care more about having to click his mouse three times extra a day than a family who are desperate to do anything they possibly can to find their missing daughter?

Pull the other one. This spam will help nobody and its just a nuisance.

Kold · 21-09-2008 5:37pm

latenia wrote: »

What a prick. Does he really care more about having to click his mouse three times extra a day than a family who are desperate to do anything they possibly can to find their missing daughter?

Imagine if every person that went missing had this kind of campaign (it looks like it could become a trend...) The world doesn't stop for them.

latenia · 21-09-2008 5:37pm

The e-mails probably won't help them find their daughter but why go out of your way to bring more trouble on them, unless you're a prick.

Random · 21-09-2008 5:39pm

I don't appreciate these emails in my inbox daily.

Dave147 · 21-09-2008 5:43pm

latenia wrote: »

The e-mails probably won't help them find their daughter but why go out of your way to bring more trouble on them, unless you're a prick.

Get Real.

ScumLord · 21-09-2008 5:44pm

Spam filter?

SV · 21-09-2008 5:45pm

jesus christ, she's dead.

give up already.

latenia · 21-09-2008 5:46pm

Again, it's very little trouble to block or delete these messages. By making a complaint to the DPC, a whole load of hassle and potential fines have been brought upon a family who hardly need them at this time.

AtomicHorror · 21-09-2008 5:47pm

latenia wrote: »

The e-mails probably won't help them find their daughter but why go out of your way to bring more trouble on them, unless you're a prick.

Because if you allow it once, then where does it stop? Sadly, a whole load of people go missing every year. Do we just accept the local ones? If I get annoyed about ones from Britain am I still a prick? How far do we go beyond that? As I understand it, the worldwide tally on missing persons is something above 1 million reports per year. Shall we accept a spam mail for each of them? How long after a person goes missing is it acceptable to keep spamming people? A year? Two? Ten?

AtomicHorror · 21-09-2008 5:50pm

latenia wrote: »

Again, it's very little trouble to block or delete these messages.

If people simply accept it because they feel bad complaining, then it won't be, because there'll be thousands of spams. I have no issue with national level advertising or whatever extent they wish to go to, but we wouldn't accept national level mail through our doors and we should accept spam emailing either.

mikom · 21-09-2008 5:53pm

latenia wrote: »

What a prick. Does he really care more about having to click his mouse three times extra a day than a family who are desperate to do anything they possibly can to find their missing daughter?

Post up your email address there so latenia. Then we can all forward to you any of these mails we receive. After all it is just a few clicks to delete them. These are worse than spam as they ask you to " keep this circulating even if it's to one more person". Chain letter spam FTL

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 21-09-2008 6:16pm

ScumLord wrote: »

Spam filter?

Mine appears to work: I've never rreceived one.

WindSock · 21-09-2008 6:28pm

Spam is spam, imo. No difference between this or concern or a nigerian prince hassling you. Amy is not hiding in my basement, try looking in Austria.

Kold · 21-09-2008 6:37pm

^^ She's not in my basement either... Which is a shame because Maddie just isn't doing it for me anymore.

AlmightyCushion · 21-09-2008 6:44pm

I haven't received any of these (must check my gmail spam folder) but if I received even one I'd be reporting them too. Unsolicited emails are illegal and there is a reason for that Spam is an absolute nuisance and a complete pain in the ass.

latentia wrote:

Again, it's very little trouble to block or delete these messages. By making a complaint to the DPC, a whole load of hassle and potential fines have been brought upon a family who hardly need them at this time.

Yes it takes very little time to delete a message but we shouldn't have to do it. Spam costs business' and people a lot of time and money. If they don't want to pay the fines then they shouldn't have spammed in the first place.

Spammers are complete and utter scum who care about no one other than themselves no matter why they do it.

krpc · 21-09-2008 7:12pm

Kold wrote: »

^^ She's not in my basement either... Which is a shame because Maddie just isn't doing it for me anymore.

That gave me quite a guilty laugh

Aodan83 · 21-09-2008 7:19pm

ClioV6 wrote: »

jesus christ, she's dead.

give up already.

Ah yes, the eternal optomist

In fairness, there have to be better ways of raising awareness for this kind of thing. Very few paople pay this kind of spam any attention.

Capt'n Midnight · 21-09-2008 7:20pm

No listing yet on Garda.ie

http://www.garda.ie/missing.html
http://www.missingkids.ie

arybvtcw0eolkf · 21-09-2008 7:53pm

Davei141 wrote: »

Pull the other one. This spam will help nobody and its just a nuisance.

Its not trying to sell you anything, or increase the size of your penis for crying out loud.

If JUST ONE person opened that email and something clicked (no pun intended) and led to either the recovery of Amy's body or to her being found a live and well, then every possible measure, or spam email will have been worth it.

As a father of a teenage daughter my heart genuinely goes out to this family, I couldn't imagine 'nor do I want to imagine the agony this family is going through.

MagicMarker · 21-09-2008 7:59pm

If you have such a problem with spam then you really shouldn't be using the fucking internet.

AlmightyCushion · 21-09-2008 8:12pm

Mairt wrote: »

Its not trying to sell you anything, or increase the size of your penis for crying out loud.

It's still unsolicited and therefore illegal.

Mairt wrote: »

If JUST ONE person opened that email and something clicked (no pun intended) and led to either the recovery of Amy's body or to her being found a live and well, then every possible measure, or spam email will have been worth it.

Do you want an email every time someone goes missing or someone loses an umbrella (after all they aren't trying to sell you something they are just trying to find an umbrella) or whatever? I know I wouldn't.

GlanzaTRD · 21-09-2008 9:00pm

I think the lad is taking it too far by complaining to the DPC, but these are arriving in droves to his work email, it wouldn't be as bad if it was a personal crappy Yahoo or Hotmail account.

The sender also refused to state where they got his email address from when he requested to opt-out of receiving the emails. So as he says, he doesn't have much choice but to do something although he doubts the DPC will do much anyway.

As I now see in this thread, it does raise a serious question over "acceptable" spam. I mean where does it end? If the family of Jean McConville (missing since the 70s) had done this, spam would be going around well after the 3 decades it took for her body to be accidentally found.

21-09-2008 9:22pm

I haven't gotten any yet. If I do I'd just set up a spam filter on my gmail.

Guy:Incognito · 21-09-2008 10:26pm

Mairt wrote: »

Its not trying to sell you anything, or increase the size of your penis for crying out loud..

So what your saying is, it's useless.

I could do with getting my self one of those bigger penis's.

jos28 · 21-09-2008 10:52pm

Mairt wrote: »

Its not trying to sell you anything, or increase the size of your penis for crying out loud.

If JUST ONE person opened that email and something clicked (no pun intended) and led to either the recovery of Amy's body or to her being found a live and well, then every possible measure, or spam email will have been worth it.

As a father of a teenage daughter my heart genuinely goes out to this family, I couldn't imagine 'nor do I want to imagine the agony this family is going through.

I have to agree with Mairt, it's a spam email, similar to junk mail being stuck in your letter box. It's annoying but part of life. If someone I loved was missing I would do anything to find out what happened to them. I know spam is annoying but just think of what Amy's family are going through. Does spam cause you sleepless nights, I can't imagine that Amy's parents have slept too well since she went missing.

Capt'n Midnight · 22-09-2008 12:08am

GlanzaTRD wrote:

As I now see in this thread, it does raise a serious question over "acceptable" spam. I mean where does it end? If the family of Jean McConville (missing since the 70s) had done this, spam would be going around well after the 3 decades it took for her body to be accidentally found.

qft

Yes I've received stuff three years out of date , and there are some hoaxes too.

And most of it is "pretty white girl missing"

Actually one child a week goes missing here.
http://www.irishrefugeecouncil.ie/press07/missing.html

the HSE reported that 328 migrant children had gone missing from care in the period 2001–2005.

Lillyella · 22-09-2008 12:58am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

qft

Yes I've received stuff three years out of date , and there are some hoaxes too.

And most of it is "pretty white girl missing"

Actually one child a week goes missing here.
http://www.irishrefugeecouncil.ie/press07/missing.html

What defines missing though? They've probably gone home.

Bob the Builder · 22-09-2008 1:58am

mightn't be selling something, but it's still advertising.

yah, sure, I'd like to get that email once, maybe once a year, but thats it.

arybvtcw0eolkf · 22-09-2008 3:26pm

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

It's still unsolicited and therefore illegal.

You've NEVER, EVER broken a law?.. Ever?

I don't mean been caught, I mean things like speeding, littering, pissing in public when drunk or a host of other smaller things. Ever looked for, or was served a beer after hours?. Ever even been drunk in public (that one is a bigger pain in the arse for people than any amount of spam is).

It makes me laugh when people take that highground and bitch about illegalities.

There are very few of us here who haven't broken a law.

I haven't received one of these emails, and even if I did it would just be deleted. But clicking a box and then 'delete' ain't going to spoil my day!.

GlanzaTRD · 26-09-2008 6:09pm

My mate got an email back from the Data Protection Commissioner's Office stating that:

I am writing in relation to your e-mails received by our office on the 23
September 2008 in relation to a unsolicited e-mail that you received.

Thank you for forwarding a copy of the email which you received concerning
the search for Amy Fitzpatrick. We have now examined its content. We are
satisfied that the email does not constitute direct marketing and therefore
the sending of that email does not constitute an offence. It is only the
sending of an unsolicited email for direct marketing purposes without the
prior consent of the recipient that constitutes an offence.

Im sorry our office could not be of assistance in this mattter.

Loopy · 26-09-2008 6:22pm

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Do you want an email every time someone goes missing or someone loses an umbrella

Sh1t I have lost my daughter..

Sh1t I have lost my umbrella..

Hmmmmmm, excellent example

zAbbo · 26-09-2008 6:34pm

You wouldn't find Liam Nesson messing around with spam mails or pouty bebo pages

Tha Gopher · 26-09-2008 6:59pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

And most of it is "pretty white girl missing"

Actually one child a week goes missing here.
http://www.irishrefugeecouncil.ie/press07/missing.html

Yes. Every single one of those cases are of the exact same circumstances as this. :rolleyes:

McSandwich · 26-09-2008 9:17pm

I imagine that her poor parents are desperate and at this stage willing to try ANYTHING in the faint hope that their message might reache someone who knows where their daughter is, or even the girl herself.

I don't know what I'd be willing do in that terrible situation and I hope never to find out. The legality/ ethics of sending unsolicited email would be the last thing on my mind..

Amy Fitzpatrick spam?

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