Just wanted to get this out. I used to use ICQ a long time ago. I never once got spammed. If somebody contacted me and I didn’t wish to add them to my list, I never heard from them again. I had absolutely no complaints. Then AOL bought it and I immediately sent a message to everybody on my list that I was leaving. Yes, it was because of the acquisition.
A couple of months ago, I decided to load it again. Not a day has gone by that I haven’t received a message asking me to look at ‘Hot Chicks’ or ‘Lovely Lolitas’. It’s exactly what I expected it to be. It’s the exact reason I left as soon as I found out AOL bought it. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a coincidence and it was inevitable, but it still makes me wonder.
ICQ has lost another user, not that they care. I haven’t paid them for use of their service, and that obviously means that they don’t have to worry about customer service. I have never gotten spam from my ISPs, except in cases where I unwittingly approved the mailing. My grandmother signed up for AOL, against my better judgment, and within a week her mailbox was full of crap. She’s since gone to a real ISP.
I guess there’s really not any point to this. It’s just something I wanted to get off my chest. I’m pretty sure this belongs here because it’s not pit material and I’m not trying to ‘convert’ anybody. I’m just feeling really disappointed right now.
That’s exactly why I tell people who ask me what ISP to use NEVER to sign on to AOL. I had a membership there with two screen names, and within days they were completely spammed with sex smut and get rich quick schemes. I had not used those addresses for ANY correspondence at all, except through AOL. I also had not visited any chat rooms. I couldn’t believe it. Either AOL sells screen names or someone is really good at hacking them. The names I had were not common enough to guess.
[hijack] Hey Zette, your sig line makes me think of a story. My mother and father like to play trivia games. One day they were playing a music game and the clue my mother meant to give was Ring of Fire. Instead, she called it Lakeof Fire. Fortunately the 'rents have been married over 30 years and dad knew exactly what she meant.
HEY! I didn’t say it was a FUNNY story. LOL [/hijack]
I started an AOL account years ago. My family uses it for e-mail and my dad has his web page hosted there. When I started cutting marketing and media deals with AOL, they offered to comp me on my account.
Flash forward a few years. AOL decides to review its comp list and sends me a notification that my account will revert back to paid status. Fine, says I, it’s been a while since I’ve cut a deal with them. No problem picking up the tab. Unfortunately, AOL then decides to completely nuke my account. I had to argue with folks at AOL just to restore my e-mail and my dad’s web page. They decide to comp me again.
So today I get another e-mail that my account is reverting back to paid status. As soon as I get home, I’m going to start making backups.
Aglarond, I know exactly where you’re coming from. I used ICQ in the early days (I have a rare, 6-digit ICQ number) and I used it for business all the time. My team members and I used it for file sharing and all sorts of other stuff. Now, I only get porn spam and weird, unintelligible stuff that could only come from abroad. AOL has taken a great tool and turned it into a spammer’s paradise.
Ag, I really haven’t had that problem. I have ICQ and actually, I still have an AOL account, don’t ask me why. I had an old ICQ account and wasn’t very careful about who had my number and who could see when I was online and such. Anyway, I got paranoid one day and cancelled it.
A year or so later, I got a new account and by then they had fixed a lot of security issues and I haven’t had much trouble with it. I get maybe one of those messages per month. And I’m on every night for an hour or so.
The only screen name on AOL that I ever had any trouble with spam, was one that I accidentally (really) went into a chat room. At the time, you hit one button and you were in a room. I saw several messages about a new person for their list and an immediate IM. I spent maybe 2 minutes in that chat room. I’ve always had spam on that screen name, but none on any other.
I had several different ISPs over the years, including Earthlink and Mindspring (when they were seperate). Never had a spam problem. Then my sister and mother both got PCs. They are not tech-types, so they went with AOL. I never really knew anyone with AOL before that.
The one thing that really annoys me with e-mail from AOL people is that you scroll down through pages of header info and usernames before you get to the 5 lines of message. Doesn’t anyone on AOL know how to paste, or just cut that crap out of their message?
But wait…there’s more. I’ve sent some stuff to my mother and sister - you know, jokes and stuff that people forward around. So my address now gets forwarded along with everything else, and now I’m getting all kinds of spam at home AND at work. Same shit as Zette - MAKE MONEY!!! TRY THIS!!! INTERNET SPY!!!
So by forwarding all these addresses, it’s just providing a free namelist service for scumbag spammers.