Have you ever had one of those days when everything went wrong? When you were just waiting for the other shoe to fall? Well, recently I had the opportunity to have a day just like that. It all started when...


I met a new business associate, in speaking with him he seemed very knowledgeable about something I had always had problems mastering. So, we struck a deal. I would set up an autoresponder, on my hosting account for him and in turn he would do some things for me.

Everything was working so wonderfully, it seemed that this was indeed a very good move to make. Unfortunately, I would soon realize that it was one of the worst things I could have ever done. Within just a matter of hours on the third day, it happened...

I'm a real stickler about checking my webstats to make sure that I have visitors flowing and nothing going out that isn't supposed to be. It was at one of these times that something happened I could have never dreamed of.

There it was in big, ugly white letters on a gray background, "Site Suspended - contact support immediately." After picking myself up off the floor I frantically started sending emails. The first one went out to my web host inquiring what was going on. In only a matter of seconds after that...

I started receiving gobs and gobs of messages coming into my "catchall" emailbox. I'm counting as they are being downloaded... 20...50...80...100...all the way up to 1000 +

I checked my secondary email to see if my host had replied...yes, they had…and in the subject line was the word "SPAM". While still trying to figure out exactly what was going on I read on...

From the start to finish of the email was "CAPITAL" letters (This is referred to as yelling in a chat room or in email) I immediately emailed my host back explaining that "I wasn't a SPAMMER, nor had I spammed anyone"

Well, it turns out that the associate I set up the autoresponder for (on my hosting account) had imported 15,000 email addresses into the autoresponder and sent a broadcast email. I now emailed my new associate asking him where he had gotten the email addresses he was sending to. He personally called me as surprised as I was.

He had purchased an "optin" list, complete with IP addresses and all and had all the documentation for it. Feeling somewhat better, I quickly emailed my web host with the explanation for what happened. They again responded by yelling, but not before telling me not to reply to their email, that they were too busy cleaning up my mess. Can you imagine being put in that position?

Finally after 15-20 hours of having my website shut down it came back to life. It was only a couple of minutes later that I received another email from my host saying....

They had re-activated my site and that they weren't sorry for any downtime I had and this was my first and last chance....

Okay, by now I am steaming. Nothing that had been done was wrong, any and all email addresses that were being sent to opted in. Herein lies the lesson I wanted to pass on to you, one that I hope you never have to learn yourself...

Even if the list you're purchasing is optin, this doesn't stop someone from complaining about being "Spammed" nor does it mean that AOL's server won't blacklist you or even block good, deliverable email.

All of my list, newsletters, etc...are "double-optin", I guess all during this time I thought that was "protecting" me.

I wanted to pass along this little happening to make you aware that just about anything is possible on the internet today, so please be careful. Here are some tips that will help you eliminate any potential problems before they happen.

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Tip #1 - Check with your web host to verify how many emails they will allow to be sent per hour.

Tip #2 - Never buy "any" mailing list for email purposes, even if they claim the people have opted in with verification, it isn't worth the trouble.

Tip #3 - If you're going to build a list that's fine, but do it the old fashion way, do it yourself, only with an autoresponder that has a “double-optin” feature.
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I hope that this has enlightened you to the pitfalls you have to potentially face daily, for me, it made me all the more determined to press forward :) Use this as a guide and learn from my mistakes.

To Your Best in Success,


Earl Adkins – TurnkeyGold
http://www.turnkeygold.com

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