What Happened To Honesty?

Life is a good thing. It has it's ups and it's downs, surprises, worries, joy's and sorrows. I think most would agree it's just a great thing to experience and be a part of. Every once in a while though, they're comes along in the path of life a large stone that makes you...aw screw the analogy. I need to just say what I'm on here to say. Today's marketing SUCKS with a capitol K.

Virtually everyone has experienced junk mail, spam and other horrible marketing tools that have become overly popular in the past years. Well it seems to me that the slime balls of america have yet again stepped it up a notch.

A perfect example? Liberty Names of America. They don't want you to enjoy life. Their selfish desires consume their marketing strategies no matter how many are trampled to death in the process. Let me elaborate via my personal experience.

To be honest, I'm not sure how they initiated this whole ordeal. I believe it was via mail. I remember getting a letter in the mail claiming that the domain joshsammons.com needed to be renewed for the fee of $25.00. I thought to myself, "Crap! Already? I thought I paid yearly and in the month of October." First red flag. "And I can't remember the name of the company I registered with but this doesn't sound like it." Second red flag. However, I quickly pulled both flags out and sent in the money simply because I had other more important things to worry about.

A month and a half later I got an email stating that payment had been received. All that I had to do now was click a link to verify my email address and the transfer would be complete. I didn't click it because at the time I didn't remember paying it (it was that long ago) and I wanted to check with Linz and make sure we're not paying twice.

Later that same day I received an email from my actual registrar, Active Domains. They wanted me to know that a request for a transfer had come to them regarding joshsammons.com. If I wanted to move ahead with the transfer I had to do nothing. If I wanted to stop the transfer I was to reply to their message before a certain date.

What took place in my head next was like the last scene in Fight Club when Edward Norton plays back the entire movie in his mind while plugging in what he has just learned into every scene thus making sense of all things and revealing the plot of the movie.

DING! DING! DING! It all made sense now, this company was tricking me into transferring my domain over to them thus creating new business for them. What a sleazy thing to do!!! Ahh! I called, emailed and cancelled the transaction as fast as I could and as many times as I could. Since it hadn't gone through yet, I was issued a refund which I still have yet to receive. If I don't get it they'll be hearing from me again but Im fairly confident I will get it. (There's that trust again! When will I learn?)

SO. Today I received ANOTHER letter from a completely different company (ListingCorp.com) with almost the exact same marketing process. GOD I HATE THESE PEOPLE!!! Who the hell gave them my information? You know what? I bet they got it from whois.com. Dan showed me that a while back. Why is that information so easy to get?

Apparently you have to pay extra to register privately. Just like being unlisted in the phone book. Grr. Well at least now I'm prepared. I'll be standing guard and keeping a tight watch on what goes on in the domain department.

I just wanted to let you guys know that these people are out there and they'll do ANYTHING to get your business, yes even trick you into it. So watch out!