Anyone here get an email recently from Reunion.com, saying that someone is searching for you there? I recently got such an email and stupidly clicked on the link and registered for their free service to see who this person was (name was given, didn't recognize it, but thought she might be going under a married name I don't know). I had no intention and no knowledge, until after-the-fact, that apparently every email address in my Gmail address book would receive such an invitation, one that said I was looking for the recipient on Reunion.com!
I called the number listed and had a long talk with a customer representative and her supervisor at Reunion.com, which is an actual, legitimate site, apparently. This was all part of a recent promotion, but the site is apparently set up to virtually assure that all of one's email contacts will receive such emails if they register, EVEN IF, as I did, one clicks on the "skip this step" button. The supervisor changed her story several times, but finally said something to the effect that if you do not affirmatively tell them NOT to contact everyone in your address book, they take that as an implied authorization for them to do so, even though obviously one would not need to search for anyone whose email address they already have! Needless to say, I communicated my displeasure about these tactics and asked that she forward my strong suggestion that they change these tactics, and even suggested that what they are doing seems legally questionable and that I might contact the appropriate regulatory authorities, such as the FCC. So I strongly encourage you to NOT click on the site in the email or visit this site, period. If you have already done this, they did say that the invitations only go out one time, and this is NOT a virus or anything that should affect your computer, at least from what the supervisor said, and their contact information is listed on the site (in Virginia). I am alerting the over a thousand persons in my address book about this. I wonder whether their promotion tactics are legal. Isn't this, in effect, just like what a virus might do? Is this a way to legally spam people? Thinking about creating a website to alert people to this; maybe something like DONTGOTOREUNIONDOTCOM. Or are there existing watchdog sites it would be good to post such an alert to? Think I've again and, hopefully, finally, learned the lesson: to NEVER click on a site in an email that is unsolicited and not from someone I know. Would that not be universally applicable, good advice for everyone? Thanks, Randall ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
