For quite a long time now I’ve been resisting the temptation to go down the smart phone route, based on the principle that as I spend much of my day – most days – sat in front of a screen, the last thing I need is email beeping away in my pocket! I’ve always been quite happy with a phone being just that, a phone!

Yes, I’m well aware I don’t have to set-up email on a phone, but simply having a browser to hand constantly presents a major temptation. Given the walk I’m planning – it seemed to make sense to finally give in. This decision being based on the principle that having a smart phone will allow me not to have to carry, a sat-nav, a phone, and a camera. The Galaxy I’ve now got is a fraction of the weight!

Working on the simple principle that if I’m going down this route I had to go for the top end of the range, I’d narrowed it down to a choice of two, the Galaxy S2 and I also thought the Google Nexus looked pretty impressive. After a visit to the local Vaodafone shop I decided on the S2.

I should say at this point for the iEvangelists amongst you, the iPhone was never in the frame – I don’t do iGadgets, as in my opinion they are over priced, over sold, and over proprietary. I don’t like Apple, I don’t like the hype. I’ve never liked Apple as a brand and I’m about as likely to worship Steve Jobs (RIP) about as much as I am Jesus – which id VERY unlikely.

Though nowhere near a substitute for a real PC or laptop I’m extremely impressed by the phone, and it fits perfectly the purpose I’ve bought it for, though I could never use it for what I consider serious work day to day. The camera is great, it can do everything I need, and when the time comes is actually perfect for what I have in mind for the walk in every way.

I do however have one grumble. Perhaps largely as I’ve been using a simple phone that rarely needed charging more than once a week, the battery life is very disappointing – less than a day. And, it’s especially heavy on the battery using the sat-nav app I’ve plumped for, which is a problem given the ultimate purpose of acquiring the phone – if it won’t last a full working day of heavy use. As I write I have a second battery, and emergency charger on the way which should cure this.

If the battery lasted a full week like my old phone, it would be the perfect gadget! Despite my one little moan I can see this spending quite a long time as my constant companion!

Amazon: Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II 16 GB Sim Free Smartphone

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I’m not going to name names, as I have nothing against the business and they are reasonably good at what they do… However, in the bullshit stakes this is a total howler! I’m going to pick out a few phrases and elaborate on them with a bit of comment, just for fun!

xxx.com is now available on computers…

Ground-breaking progress! Well done guys!

..ultimate website, in three languages, Spanish, English and German it is truly an international site

Last time I looked I thought there were a few more languages than that. Truly international – I don’t think so…

Google rates it within the top million site of the world of the billions currently online

I may have missed something somewhere, but I’m not aware Google publish such a list. Chances are they got these figures from one of the two different listings they have on Alexa.com, where indeed they are listed at 619,017  on the most favourable of the two. Which I will quote from….

There are 619,016 sites with a better three-month global Alexa traffic rank than xxx.com, and the site has a relatively good traffic rank in the city of Las Palmas (#504). About 90% of visits to this site are bounces (one pageview only)
Alexa.com

They go on to claim…

By linking with xxx.com you will automatically be at the top of the search engines

What for? Your own business name? Easily done for free… If they are talking about their site coming up in searches for “Lanzarote”, no, it’s not true. They are midway down page two – www.discoverlanzarote.com is, and has been for as long as I’ve been looking at it, number one in google.co.uk.

They claim an average stay onine of 7 minutes (cherry picked from the other of the two entries on Alexa – which incidentally ranked them at neared 2 million). The one I looked at stated….

…and the time spent in a typical visit to xxx.com is approximately three minutes, with two minutes spent on each pageview.
Alexa.com

Which, if the bounce rate of 90% is to believed makes their traffic pretty much worthless.

My personal favourite though is the strapline…!

The most visited site on the Canary Islands

A couple of points here…

1. There’s no way of knowing
2. If the Alexa figures are what they are using as evidence of their popularity bear in mind that discoverlanzarote.com is ranked at 6,726 as opposed to their 619,017. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist does it? There are MANY busier sites.

As I said, bear them no ill-will, nothing against them, for the most part it’s a very professional company. However, it’s a perfect example – as I have discussed before on here – just how some people get carried away with web statistics! Absolute twaddle – marketing bullshit!

Related posts:

1. What is Google Page Rank
2. Is my site banned by Google?
3. How to get more hits…

My favourite from the annals of history is the guy who had the Conservative Party displaying an image from his site – he replaced the image of a politician with one of a penis.

Here’s one I prepared earlier after we found someone stealing from Canary Nightlife.

Before

After

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A personal word to the list broker – think very hard before threatening me with legal action for ‘harassment’ (or for that matter threatening me in any way) – My simple request to be informed where and how the email address in question was gathered is perfectly reasonable.

Frankly, my bet is that you’d get laughed out of court for describing my request as ‘harassment‘.  Your lack of understanding of the law can only be rivalled – in my humble opinion – by your complete and utter lack of professionalism. My complaint is against your business. Do you feel it either appropriate or professional to bully or make threats because I say something you don’t like about your business practices….?

Have you learned nothing in your “15 years of experience” (which you do so like to repeat)…?

We are all plagued by spam, most of it we can not trace – but when one like this comes along and it’s possible to research it’s origins and make a stand I will… I appreciate that I can be a bit anal (some may also say cantankerous or bloody minded) at times – but why the hell do you feel I do not have the right to know from where, and how you, your supplier and client took my email address without my consent?

Here’s the email conversation I’ve had with both Little Chef and the list brokers to prove my point so readers can make their own mind up…

From: Kids Eat Free [kidseatfree@littlechef.uk.com]
Sent: 11 April 2011 17:24
To: webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxx.com
Subject: Kids Eat Free

Hello friend,

Why break the bank over the Easter

Holidays when it’s Kids eat Free at Little Chef?

It’s a brilliant deal…a grown-up buys a main course…a kid gets their main course free. Simple.

No vouchers to collect, no coupons to cut out – just turn up and tuck in.

It’s empty plates not empty pockets this Easter at Little Chef.

Pop in…we’d love to see you.

From: Alan Gandy [alan@xxxxxxx.com]
Sent: 14 April 2011 11:04
To: ‘customer.services@littlechef.co.uk’
Cc: ‘xxxxxxx@littlechef.co.uk’
Subject: FAO: Tracey Mulligan: Does the left hand know…

I have to say, I am more than a little perplexed by the amateur nature of your current email marketing. In addition to having virtually no targeting it breaches Data Protection legislation. Very surprised at that behaviour from a major brand such as yourselves.

http://www.lanzarotewebdesign.com/little-chef-puts-spam-on-the-menu/

Alan Gandy

PS: Receipt of this email does not imply any for of consent to be added to any of your mailing lists!

From: Helen Strang [xxxxxxx@little-chef.co.uk]
Sent: 14 April 2011 14:35
To: alan@xxxxxx.com
Subject: Letter from Tracey – Email Spam

14 April 2011

Dear Alan,

First of all… sorry. But let me thank you for bringing to my attention the fact that we sent you an email that you would have preferred not to receive.

As part of our marketing campaign to tell potential customers about our new restaurants and the “Kids Eat Free” promotion during the Easter holidays, we did buy a database of email addresses from a list broker which included business people as they become families during holiday periods and therefore may be interested in visiting a Little Chef whilst travelling throughout the UK. However, I appreciate that living in Spain, the information was of no interest to you.

You mentioned that we used an old e-mail address, if it is not too much trouble, could you let us have it so we can make sure that it is permanently removed from the database we used. We have already requested that your current e-mail address be deleted if it appears on any list used by our broker.

Again, please accept my apologies for having offended you and I am sorry that we didn’t get it right on this occasion. We strive every day to do it better and get it right, and your commentscan only help us.

Thanks for your time once again.

Best Regards,

Tracey

Tracey Mulligan

Managing Director

From: Alan Gandy [alan@xxxxxx.com]
Sent: 14 April 2011 15:04
To: ‘Helen Strang’
Subject: RE: Letter from Tracey – Email Spam

Dear Tracey,

I do appreciate your apology and thank you for that.

Clearly your list broker has been harvesting email addresses from the internet. By definition buying such a list and sending unsolicited email constitutes spam – which to the best of my knowledge breaches data protection legislation as outlined here

http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/privacy_and_electronic_communications/the_guide/electronic_mail.aspx additionally I would also imagine it may well constitute a breach of the terms & conditions of your ISP.

For this reason I do not want my address removed of the list. I would instead prefer it to remain in the hope that it can not be used again in this manner. As if I receive any more I will be reporting this to the ICO.

Please don’t take this action the wrong way Tracey, I quite like Little Chef as a brand. Most of us have some happy memories of our past travels associated with the company! If anything I’d like to think I am trying to protect the company from itself… In all honesty Tracey I can think of 101 better ways to get your message across via online marketing.

Regards

Alan

From: Tracey Mulligan [xxxxxx@little-chef.co.uk]
Sent: 19 April 2011 12:19
To: alan@xxxxxx.com
Subject: Reply from Tracey Mulligan

Dear Alan,

Thank you for your reply and I am pleased that you like the Little Chef brand.

As you will appreciate e-marketing is just one element of the marketing mix and it gives us an opportunity to communicate a simple message to consumers who may be interested. Clearly not everyone will be and they are invited to opt out from any further communication.

Our list broker has assured us that your email was collected in accordance with data protection rules. They work closely with the Information Commissioner’s Office to ensure that they do not do anything illegal on behalf of their clients and we have also contacted the Commissioner’s Office to make sure that this is the case.

If you would provide us with your old email address we will make sure that you are not contacted again.

Yours sincerely,

Tracey Mulligan

Managing Director

From: Alan Gandy [alan@xxxxxx.com]
Sent: 19 April 2011 13:45
To: ‘Tracey Mulligan’
Subject: RE: Reply from Tracey Mulligan

Dear Tracey,

I happen to feel very strongly on the issue of spam.

I have no wish to be a thorn in anyone’s side. But please allow me to reiterate how extremely unlikely it is that the email address in question could appear on a legitimate list.

1. It is a long standing domain name which has not been in everyday use for quite some time.

2. The email address is only in one place on the Internet, and the specific address was only set up about a year ago for this one purpose.

3. Even if it was in regular use (or I have made a mistake and used it), I always click the no subscription and no third parties options on any website.

4. I have not elected to receive email from Little Chef directly, so this email is by definition spam.

It’s my belief that you are a reputable company and would not knowingly break the law. However, it would seem to me that your list brokers are likely being untruthful about the source of this list. Unless they could identify how the list was sourced and prove my suspicions wrong I could not possibly even consider changing my view on this matter.

I won’t be providing the email address for the reasons I gave in my last email.

Regards

Alan

From: Tracey Mulligan [xxxxxx@little-chef.co.uk]
Sent: 28 April 2011 09:10
To: alan@xxxxxx.com
Subject: Response to your email

Dear Alan

We do take your comments seriously and I think at this stage I need to involve our list broker so that they can explain how they compile their lists.

With your permission I would like to give Steve James from B2BDatalists the contact details you supplied to us and asked him to contact you directly. I hope that they will be able to respond to your concerns.

Please would you let me know if this is OK with you.

With best regards

Tracey

Tracey Mulligan

Managing Director

From: Alan Gandy [alan@xxxxxx.com]
Sent: 28 April 2011 10:27
To: ‘Tracey Mulligan’
Subject: RE: Response to your email

Yes, you do have my permission Tracey.

Regards

Alan

From: Alan Gandy [alan@xxxxxx.com]
Sent: 16 May 2011 16:30
To: ‘Tracey Mulligan’
Subject: RE: Response to your email

I can’t say I am surprised – but I have not heard from your list broker.

Alan Gandy

Subject Unsubscribe
From Steve James | B2B Data Lists Group
To alan@xxxxxx.com
Sent 18 May 2011 10:17

Hi Alan,

Further to your recent correspondence with Little Chef your details have been forwarded for my attention on behalf of B2B Data Lists since we are responsible for the sourcing of data and any claim you feel appropriate should be directed towards ourselves. I have tried calling you a few times with no success.

To confirm, I have requested all emails to alan@xxxxxx.com are “unsubscribed” from our suppliers, however, please be aware that we are not a “data owner” and only have contracts with a few major providers in the UK and there’s well over 100 companies who could be selling your information as you can imagine.

Speaking from over 15 years industry experience, rest assured all legislation is strictly followed and no laws are broken when emailing a business email address such as this for a businessproduct/service. Your details do not require “opt‐in” (unlike consumer legislation) and you can be removed at any point in time by simply “unsubscribing” which I have now done for you and removed this record from the particular supplier’s database involved. Again, we cannot be accountable for other providers.

Could I request any future correspondence be directed to myself, although as far as I am concerned this is an end to the matter which I trust is acceptable since you are now officially unsubscribed from our suppliers database to receiving third party promotions.

I appreciate it is very frustrating and please accept my apologies on this occasion on behalf of this particular data provider.

Kind regards,

Steve

Subject RE: Unsubscribe
From Alan Gandy
To ‘Steve James | B2B Data Lists Group’
Cc ‘xxxxxx@littlechef.co.uk’
Sent 18 May 2011 14:53

Steve,

I don’t know if you’ve read my original emails to Tracey Mulligan. It would appear not.

Had you read them you would know that this email address is not the email address in question. You might also have read that my concerns were as follows;

1. It is a long standing domain name which has not been in everyday use for quite some time.

2. The email address is only in one place on the Internet, and the specific address was only set up about a year ago for this one purpose.

3. Even if it was in regular use (or I have made a mistake and used it), I always click the no Subscription and no third parties options on any website.

4. I have not elected to receive email from Little Chef directly, so this email is by definition spam.

Let me add to this, that the site from which the name appears to have been taken has NOTHING on it to indicate that it is a business website – it is simply a blog. Which I can only assume would make this matter fall under the consumer legislation you refer to….

This is not the end of the matter you might wish for in your email. I feel I am within my rights to ask where the original list was sourced, and the refusal to accept any responsibility both from Little Chef and yourselves in this matter is I feel at best unprofessional.

Regards

Alan

Subject: RE: Unsubscribe
From: Steve James | B2B Data Lists Group
To: alan@xxxxxx.com
Sent: 18 May 2011 23:48

Hi Alan,

I am sorry you feel this way, but I have to say you are wrong in your assumptions and B2B Data Lists is not in breach of any laws speaking from over 15 years industry experience and also after consulting our legal representative.

From a legal prospective, I think any judge would agree that Little Chef have bent over backwards to try and please you over an issue that is quite honestly not their fault since the responsibility lies with B2B Data Lists as the provider, but again no offence has been committed here.

We have apologised on behalf of both Little Chef and B2B Data Lists and given you the benefit of the doubt for any upset caused along with the agreement to unsubscribe you from the suppliers database. We simple cannot do any more and you are now in the eyes of any court seen to be unreasonable and therefore suggest that if you wish to take this matter further, it be done through the legal system since any further correspondence from yourself by email will be regarded as harassment and we will take the necessary courses of action against you for upsetting our client over a false claim, which tarnishes our reputation moving forward. Believe me, this is a far stronger claim.

This is my final email to you and as far as I am concerned this is the end of the matter. I hope you can be equally as reasonable and in return apologise to my client for the upset you have caused. If you persist in this manner, it will potentially backfire on you as I am sure you are now aware.

Regards,

Steve

Subject RE: Unsubscribe
From Alan Gandy
To ‘Steve James | B2B Data Lists Group’
Cc ‘Tracey Mulligan’
Sent 19 May 2011 10:04

Steve,

I find your command of the English language (prospective) almost as absurd as your blatant disregard for my concerns in this matter, this being compounded by your threats of legal action . I am more than happy to provide my address to you for your lawyers should you wish to pursue me on this ‐ good luck with that one!

However, I think you know as well as I do that the case for ‘harassment’ you may have suggested is spurious to say the least. I will not be intimidated by your threats.

No, I do not see this as the end of the matter ‐ I believe I am perfectly within my right to request details of from where this list was sourced and how I received spam from yourselves and/or your client, for all the reasons I have outlined to both you and them already.

Your threats bear no weight with me…. I find your attitude with this both threatening and unprofessional. Your representation of your clients reflects on their brand. Tarnished reputation: Your own doing. As for your demand for an apology, I have nothing to apologize for in highlighting the misuse of my email address by yourselves and your (apparently misguided, or ill‐advised) client.

Regards

Alan

End of emails (I have omitted email addresses as a courtesy!)

In conclusion: I have to say, I don’t really have that much of an issue with Little Chef – like so many institutions of its type I think they have little real understanding of how to use the online world for marketing, though perhaps it is time they got themselves up to date on best practices in my opinion.

I do however take serious offence when a company who deals in information and boasts (according to their website) clients like Asda, Audi, Toshiba, Honda, Axa and Volkswagen might be a little more professional… At the risk of repeating myself I do not think it unreasonable to know where and how this list was obtained. And, I certainly do not think such a request warrants puerile threats of legal action….

I await my Super Injunction with bated breath…

Related posts:

1. Little Chef puts Spam on the menu!
2. Why it is worth chasing spammers…
3. Phishing scam in Spain

Create a new account

I came to web design many years ago from a public relations background – I worked as Account Director at a couple of agencies and also ran my own PR company. In those heady days we billed our clients a small fortune in costs incurred from press clippings services. Unless you are seriously interested in traditional hard copy media coverage for most small to medium size businesses this isn’t necessary.

You may not even be that interested in seriously

Login...

promoting yourself via public relations… However, it would be very reckless not be aware of what’s being said about you online on this small island where reputation matters so much (or anywhere else for that matter)! Especially if it’s FREE to monitor.

This is where Google Alerts come in. Totally free and

Create!

absurdly simple to set up! Using Google Alerts you can monitor names and phrases and receive emails letting you know what’s being said about you, and also letting you know what your competitors are up to online.

1. If you don’t already have a Google account – open a new account – extremely simple to do, fill out the form and follow the instructions.
2. When you have opened the account you will be logged in (or if you have already got an account with Google login from the home page). Click on ‘My Account’.
3. On that page you will find ‘Alerts’ under the heading My products. Click on it!
4. Fill in the form with your chosen keyword or phrase like in this example – and viola. It’s that simple.

You can create as many alerts as you like to gather information on what’s being said about you, your competitors, your industry or even your hobbies….

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This morning I got unsolicited mail from Little Chef. The particular address that was used has not been used on a daily basis for a number of years. It has clearly been gathered from a website – there’s no doubt in my mind.

Is the Little Chef marketing department that inept that they are prepared to risk the reputation of the brand in this way? Are they stupid enough to employ third party providers to market them illegally? If they are, do they have any idea how these people are denigrating their name or are they leaving one of the ‘Johnny Come Lately’ internet marketing ‘experts’ (sic) to it without proper control?

Why the hell should I expend my energy clicking an unsubcribe link to a list I haven’t subscribed to! I know it takes a lot more energy but I’d rather spend my time writing this and reporting the abuse to their hosting company. I’m not one to just passively accept this kind of crap from such a brand.

At this point I have to admit though, I was quite partial to the occasional Little Chef breakfast when on the road back in the UK, though it’s very unlikely on any of my rare visits there I would avail myself of one now. Good advertising and marketing does not persuade me to buy, but, bad marketing like this does persuade me not to buy. For heavens sake Little Chef marketing department – pull your socks up!

And, just a little note on targeting for you…

“Kids Eat Free” is of little interest to me;

1. My kids are adults

2. I live in Spain

And finally, the Facebook page link on your website (which doesn’t appear to have been updated since July last year) doesn’t work. I wonder why that might be? Open complaints perhaps?

If you want some proper professional advice on how to market yourself effectively, and legally do give me a call. I’ll give you a couple of hours for free!

“You cannot transmit, or instigate the transmission of, unsolicited marketing material by electronic mail to an individual subscriber unless they have previously notified you, the sender, that they consent, for the time being, to receiving such communications. There is an exception to this rule which has been widely referred to as the soft opt in (Regulation 22(2) refers).” Excerpt from Electronic mail (Regulations 22 and 23) of the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

Related posts:

1. Little Chef and b2bdatalists.com’s response to my compaint about spam…
2. Why it is worth chasing spammers…
3. Affiliate link for Spanish websites

The right domain counts for a lot both in terms of SEO and memorability – this is a simple ‘does what it says on the tin’ name. So good it could even mean an additional direction to our business. All we need to do now is to figure out how best to exploit it… Watch this space!

We’re always on the look out for interesting domains that we can or may use like this one, and also domain names that can be of value to our future clients.

Though we have no aspirations to enter the property business we recently bought the name ‘lanzaroteestateagent.com‘ with potential future clients in mind. It was a no brainer for us – a name like that can swing a sale as it has huge potential in SEO terms if managed properly. It’s a great name to hold in our collection until someone wants it or we have the right client to use it!

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Here’s another misleading tactic that you should also be aware of. All too often you’ll see boasts about how successful sites are, demonstrated by illustrations of how much money they are making from Google Adsense. Don’t take the screen grabs at face value when someone is trying to sell you something, or convince you that with their help you can achieve the same. There’s a very good possibility you are being misled.

Fake Adsense screen grabs are incredibly easy to produce.

Click to enlarge

In the immortal words of ‘Blue Peter’, here’s one I made earlier…

How? Using – googleadsensegenerator.com (which has since been taken down, but you can find a similar tool at hacktrix.com/google-adsense-money-generator – these things come and go for obvious reasons)

Though it may seem that it has been taken out for confidentiality the blur hides the detail information too. Surely, if someone wanted to boast in this way they would at least make a recognizable email address visible to offer some form of proof that it at least might be them…

Be on your guard, there’s a lot of people out there ready to mislead you for their own personal gain or vanity.

It’s a completely dishonest tactic…

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But – if you’re the kind of sad individual who values quantity above quality – here’s a tip for you…

I play with Twitter – (only because I hate it so much, and as research for posts like this). Overnight I got 200+ new followers on one of my accounts, and they are still coming in at the rate of around ten to twenty an hour.

How? Very simple, just add the ‘big name’ Internet Marketers to your Twitter account.

If you don’t know who they are – they aren’t hard to find. You probably already have mails from the likes of Eban Pagan and Yaro Starak in your spam folder, having been ‘tempted’ into subscribing to their mailing list to download some free useless information in the past…

Your new followers will for the most part be generated by bots, and be of no use whatsoever – and are only from sad ‘get rich quick on the Internet’ types – but it’ll up your numbers.

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I sometimes use this site as a way to alert the readers of scams. Having stumbled on a business card promoting the TVI scheme in Playa Blanca here in Lanzarote very recently and having previously been asked by a friend to check out its credibility this seemed as good a place as any to put this. I won’t embarrass anyone with the name on the card – they’ve just got sucked into a pyramid scam and have lost $275-

What claims do they make?

• they claim it’s a legitimate travel business
• that you can make $10,000 a week from recruiting others

What is it in reality?

It’s a classic pyramid sales scam, (A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, without any product or service being delivered. Pyramid schemes are a form of fraud – Wikipedia)

• the ‘ business’ consists only of recruiting others
• has been banned by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, with no doubt more to follow and their offices in London have been vacated and moved to India

If  you’re the person who’s name is on the card (nobody I know), I’m very sorry you got ripped off.

Anyone else, please be on your guard. I know times are hard for many here on our little island, as they are elsewhere, it’s a perfect time for the unscrupulous to prey on hopes and dreams. Make no doubt these people will take your last penny off you.  Don’t buy dreams – if it looks to good to be true, it probably is. We all know that – but sometimes even good people get caught out when times are tough.

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2. Ash compensation email is a scam
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