Eating with a Spam King

[ColoradoChris]

Ok. Maybe I wasn't eating WITH him, but I thought I'd share this. The other day, I was eating at a local soup/salad bar. One of my family members was telling me about this guy sitting next to us (only when he would get up for more food, of course). Anyway, she was telling me that this guy was once a customer where she worked and how he founded a business, sold it, got into trouble with pr0n and all sorts of other crap online. She said he was really a scumbag. She hated helping him when he would come in. I asked, "What's his name?" When she told me "Scott Richter", I didn't think anything of it at first. Then something in my mind clicked later and I went to Google. I thought that name sounded familiar.

In case anybody doesn't know who he is:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Richter

He's been in a LOT of trouble. Sued by Myspace and I think Microsoft too. She was right. Quite the scumbag indeed.
Just thought I would share. You never know when you'll have some strange coincidence like this happen on your lunch. And just think, if she hadn't of started that conversation, I never would have known.

[meep]

That is funny, small world so to speak. Yea, he's well known in spammer circles. Richter is a main character in Brian McWilliams' 2004 book Spam Kings.

[AlphaCentauri]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVfIKsummxo

Is that the guy you saw?

[ColoradoChris]

Oh, yeah. That's him. "High-volume email sender"

Too bad he turned out the way he did. He founded this '50s themed place called Great Scott's in Colorado and then sold it. (greatscottseatery.com). It's actually pretty good. Then again, he doesn't run it anymore.

I researched the guy. Apparently he has millions of dollars. (or HAD, after Myspace got through with him).

[spamislame]

Two things, and forgive me (I'm not trying to be insulting. )

a) I can't believe that name didn't immediately make you leap across the table. That guy is in his 15th year in the illegal / unwanted spam business. (And not just email spam. Forum spam, Facebook spam, MySpace spam, etc.)

b) It's a good idea to stop referring to these people as "spam kings". I prefer the term "scumbag spammer" or some other derivative.

$0.02

SiL

[meep]

And that is a good blunt summary, SiL about Scotty "snotty" Richter. "Snotty" is a deserving term some NANAERs use, or at least I believe that is where I recall the term. It shocks me this moran is not in jail like some of the other past spamming cybercriminals.

[AlphaCentauri]

My impression has been that Richter washes his email lists pretty well. From doing nothing other than reporting to spamcop and getting on the Blue Security do-not-intrude list, I seem to get nothing from his IP range sent to my email addresses. (I have a Mailwasher filter for it and it never gets a hit, but when I was checking mail for a friend it got several.) When Knujon came out with a list that had Dynamic Dolphin in the top ten registrars for spam, I was scratching my head because I'd never run into spam from them -- but they're Richter's company.

And while the stuff Richter sends is sleaze, it isn't technically illegal in the U.S. So it's not that surprising that someone could have avoided running into him while tracking down overtly illegal pharma, replica, phish and malware sites.

[ColoradoChris]

Two things, and forgive me (I'm not trying to be insulting. )

a) I can't believe that name didn't immediately make you leap across the table. That guy is in his 15th year in the illegal / unwanted spam business. (And not just email spam. Forum spam, Facebook spam, MySpace spam, etc.)

b) It's a good idea to stop referring to these people as "spam kings". I prefer the term "scumbag spammer" or some other derivative.

$0.02

SiL

Hey, come on, give me a break. I had to look him up. It's not like she said, "Alex Polyakov." Now THAT would have made me jump out of my seat!

[spamislame]

Hey, come on, give me a break. I had to look him up. It's not like she said, "Alex Polyakov." Now THAT would have made me jump out of my seat!

And AC: agreed. Even though he's despicable, and will abuse literally any service that starts on the internet, anywhere, he actually is among the very, very few who have adapted list washing.

Doesn't mean I still don't see any from him. Which is ridiculous.

SiL

[meep]

It's not like she said, "Alex Polyakov." Now THAT would have made me jump out of my seat!

That and worse or my hair would stand on the back of my neck if I met anyone with the name Alex Polyakov in person!

[AlphaCentauri]

Better make sure your book club doesn't discuss any John LeCarre spy novels Alex Polyakov is a character from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

[Benzyl]

I'd noticed a bit recently that when I hit a 'not available in your area' spammed redirection link I often ended up dumped at a Facebook application page and thought that to be some sort of generic go away consolation prize. A bit of further checking revealed they tended to be run by 'Lunatic Games' and guess who the owner of that Denver based company is? Why Sc0tt Richter of course. Joe job, mud slinging or it's him still hard at it trying to squeeze a few pennies out of region specific 'offers' that hit countrys a few thousand miles off target. The redirection that did it is -

httq://supplementsecurity.com/109658/30 ... 7nrqq75165
302 Redirect
httq://login.tracking101.com/ez/dosbhcokrsm/&dp=746893
301 Redirect
httq://login.tracking101.com/geo_tracki ... bklnqfkygd
Meta-Refresh
httq://wd178.com
302 Redirect
httq://youranything.com/jmp.php?cid=1_4
302 Redirect
httq://login.tracking101.com/ez/bgeesnfdgdlg/&dp=742273
301 Redirect
httq://www.407point.com
302 Redirect
httq://youranything.com/jmp.php?cid=1_2
302 Redirect
httq://login.tracking101.com/sw/95018/C ... &dp=744933
Meta-Refresh
httq://69.6.27.29/extremespotdifference/

Originally targeted at httq://app.paydayfinder.co.uk/apply.php ... &campid=37 with 'Become an affiliate' at httq://affiliate.admarketers.com/index. ... php?pgid=2