Here’s a scary, slimy story that happened on Halloween.
They came from
Usually I write this off to lack of interest, a language barrier or inbox overload. But since 100% hadn’t confirmed, I decided to dig deeper.
To intrigue the unverified leads, I considered sending them a light and friendly email suggesting they visit my site or blog. While I almost never write to unverified leads [unless the name comes from a friend who needs a nudge], I felt like in this case I might reroute alternative readers.
Before I went into compose mode, I checked one last place – the verification email sent to them upon the first opt-in request. Shocking, absolutely shocking, is the only way to describe what I kept opening up. Slimy spam dripped on my screen, but where was it oozing from? How in the world did I send that?
I frantically emailed a quick support request. Then, picked up the phone and dialed AWeber’s toll-free number. How did those messages get in there? The spammers sent them to my opt-in email address? Good thing I waited on the friendly email, huh?
Turns out nothing stops spammers from sending you anything they want. The worst part? Your list report gets a bit bloated by names that never intend to get your bonus – or your newsletter. As my AWeber CSR told me, having a double opt-in insures that they’ll never make it on your list and their name will expire in 30 days. Okay, thanks for getting my hopes up that a new group found me. Now you know if an email address isn’t verified within a few days, it’s probably sent by an autospambot somewhere. Just don’t open the email they send you – unless you want to get slimed.
