Last night, just before calling it quits and turning off the computer, I received an email from a gentleman who wondered how in the world his email address had ended up in "my" classified ad board program.

Now the program he was wondering about was one of those "create your own classified ad boards," and was something that I had LONG ago eliminated completely from my ezine website.

So of course I was wondering the same thing! How could someone post to a board that should not, and physically does not (to the best of my knowledge), exist?

Well, I researched back a bit and view sourced the header to another "Classified Ad Notification" I had received - the fact was I was receiving a lot of them, off and on. My intention was to find out and stop this, but I confess it was one of those "when I get the time I'll investigate it!" sort of things. In the meantime, I was treating them as "junk mail" and just throwing them away - not keeping the names and emails - that would have been unethical.

And what did I discover?

'Lo and behold, there was the server information for a program - a membership site - that I had cancelled my subscription to at least a year ago!

Hmmmm... What's up with that?

Of course I wrote to them immediately, and yes I did include the person who contacted me in on my email, after all if it weren't for that gentleman and his very appropriate question, I'd still probably have this "on the back burner" to be taken care of later. And, because of this, it did appear from his point of view that I was to "blame."

Their response? Quite snippy to say the least LOL! I was even vaguely threatened that my statement of "since it's not mine, gain somewhere else must be the reason" [paraphrased I assure you for brevity's sake] was a "crime" to put into writing..."

Okay, now who's doing what here?

The header information from all notices sent to me clearly shows THEIR server still serving up this form - somewhere, somehow, for some reason.

Since I no longer am a member, and most certainly have not been hosting this ad board myself, what conclusion can I draw? What conclusion would YOU draw?

The best reply these people could have sent me would have been a formal apology. Did I get that? No, as I said I was vaguely threatened instead.

What sort of professional service is that...?

My best advice when joining programs and membership sites, etc., is to watch them carefully.

The majority ARE there for your benefit, one I love in particular is ISO Register, a very inexpensive but jammed packed website for online marketers, http://www.mywizardads.com/RD/ISO.html. These are good people - and the owner is a down-to- earth, I-want-to-help-you, sort of person.

This other site I speak of without naming, for heaven forbid I should write anything "criminal" while stating only the truth... well suffice to say that "all that glitters is not gold"*

What I could have done, but did not do, would have been to write them back and tell them that a while back I was personally contacted by another ex-member who was having similar issues.

So, again I say, who's doing what to who here?

Watch your back out there. There are plenty of good folk to do business with... The others? Stick up for yourself and get what needs to be taken care of... taken care of! When you are in the right, don't be afraid to say so... just be sure you have proof, of course :)

*J.R.R. Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring - A commonly-used phrase meaning not everything appears to be what it appears to be.