Spam- What is the point?

[pugwash4x4]

Seriously- why do the spammers send spam?

do they ACTUALLY make money, because it must cost a lot of time and money to organise all the spamming!

[cal72]

I love spam and eggs.

[king arthur]

Yes they make money. It's a very big business.

[randlemarcus]

On the off chance that 1 in a thousand purchases, and ten or twenty click through, thus confirming the address as "live" and increasing the value of that address in a list, yup, its almost certainly worth it, financially.

[funkyrobot]

But, how else would you find out about a penis enlargement for $40?

And where else would you be able to buy a DVD showing you how to satisfy your woman for $19.99?

Without spam you would have a small willy and would have to turn ghey.

Edited to add - prices just changed.

Edited by funkyrobot on Wednesday 7th July 11:17

[pugwash4x4]

king arthur said:

Yes they make money. It's a very big business.

really? surely their can't be anyone that actually clicks on the links though?

[king arthur]

pugwash4x4 said:

king arthur said:

Yes they make money. It's a very big business.

really? surely their can't be anyone that actually clicks on the links though?

You would think not, wouldn't you? You or I may not be stupid enough to click on them but there's no accounting for just how thick some people can be.

[buggalugs]

Junk email, junk faxes, junk mail - all in the same category, all make money - millions and millions of pounds of it. The people who reap the benefits lie on a sun lounger sipping G&T's whilst the rest of us wade around in the junk working for a living... HTH

[-DeaDLocK-]

Of course it works. Big Russian syndicates and the such wouldn't invest so much time, expertise and money into it if it didn't.

You wouldn't click on it, but you needn't look far to find millions upon millions naive people who would (your gran, perhaps?).

[Fidgits]

pugwash4x4 said:

king arthur said:

Yes they make money. It's a very big business.

really? surely their can't be anyone that actually clicks on the links though?

why would they do it, why would it be so successful and have taken off so much if they havent?

Currently around 98% of all emails sent are spam.

[aclivity]

-DeaDLocK- said:

Of course it works. Big Russian syndicates and the such wouldn't invest so much time, expertise and money into it if it didn't.

You wouldn't click on it, but you needn't look far to find millions upon millions naive people who would (your gran, perhaps?).

My dad once called me up about an email he'd received from HSBC, saying his account needed some attention. He was concerned about this, he'd read (the Waily hate Mail) about online crime and decided to find out more. I went into a bit of detail about online security, and phishing type mails, how to spot them and how to avoid them.

My dad is not a stupid person by any means, before he retired he was in charge of a huge number of people and was regularly involved in massive contract negotiations, even now he is respected enough in his field to be asked to attend events to share his experiences. He is just unfamiliar with computing.

If he hadn't had me to call, he may well have clicked on the link; the email did appear very genuine. As it turned out though, after all my lecturing about online security, that he didn't have, has never had an HSBC account.

[Mr Will]

pugwash4x4 said:

king arthur said:

Yes they make money. It's a very big business.

really? surely their can't be anyone that actually clicks on the links though?

If you send enough messages you only need a very small percentage of people to open them to make a very large amount of money.

Based on current estimates, if just one in every hundred thousand spam messages sent is opened, that will still generate over 50 million hits per month for the spammers.

Considering that the messages cost them almost nothing to send (they are sent from "bot-nets" of virus laden PCs) that's a fairly good rate of return.

[lestag]

pugwash4x4 said:

Seriously- why do the spammers send spam?

do they ACTUALLY make money, because it must cost a lot of time and money to organise all the spamming!

To make money period
http://www.3news.co.nz/Kiwi-serial-spammers-caught...

[10JH]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/646...

The 'Spam King' has some huge fines still to pay!

[Tiggsy]

of course it makes money...you think they are running at a loss wondering when business will pick up and turn a profit!

junk mail, cold class....it all works, hence people do it.

[Mr Will]

Think for a moment about how stupid the average person is, especially when it comes to computers. And then realise that 50% of people are more stupid than that. For every rocket-scientist there is someone as dumb as a rock...

[pugwash4x4]

Tiggsy said:

of course it makes money...you think they are running at a loss wondering when business will pick up and turn a profit!

junk mail, cold class....it all works, hence people do it.

yeah but junk mail and often cold calling is from people with a genuine product that the recipient could "feasibly" be interested in!

[Munter]

Mr Will said:

For every rocket-scientist there is someone as dumb as a rock...

I don't recall Mr Will playing with rockets recently.... Which leads me to one conclusion!

[Tiggsy]

pugwash4x4 said:

Tiggsy said:

of course it makes money...you think they are running at a loss wondering when business will pick up and turn a profit!

junk mail, cold class....it all works, hence people do it.

yeah but junk mail and often cold calling is from people with a genuine product that the recipient could "feasibly" be interested in!

the spam is for stuff that is hundreds of times more useless.....but goes out to thousands of times more leads!

[bogie]

imagine if it cost 20p per email ....I think world internet traffic would drop by 70% overnight LOL