Do my fellow wealthy affiliates regard this as spam? your opinions please!
DO MY FELLOW WEALTHY AFFILIATES REGARD THIS AS SPAM? YOUR OPINIONS PLEASE!
Hi Folks
Part of my daily routine in Wealthy Affiliate is to network within the Community and to that end I follow new and existing Members most days.
The other day, I connected with someone who has now sent me a Private Message containing a link to one of his programmes.
Surely, this goes against the Community's anti-spam rules and, since this person has been here since 2015 he really ought to know better.
If he were a Newbie, then maybe I'd excuse his ignorance and draw his attention to the rules.
In his defence (sort of) he's not actually trying to sell me anything but is offering me a Freebie, albeit perhaps with a possible upsale in mind in the future. But can this really be considered a defence? If I were a newbie in this Community, I'd feel very uneasy about getting a message like this in my inbox and I wouldn't want anybody I refer into Wealthy Affiliate receiving it. I'd be most p...ed off if it were to adversely influence my Referral's decision to upgrade or even stay at all.
Below is a copy and paste of the message he sent me. I have removed his personal and website details and the link to his site in order to spare his blushes.
Private message
"Hi Rich,
My name is xxxxxxxxx and I help new Marketers and Entrepreneurs define their very own niche by doing self-discovery exercises and 1 on 1 personal mentoring.
I was checking on your profile and I resonated with your story. I also started on the MLM industry many years ago. That was before I came across online marketing.
Anyway, If you would like to know more about what I do exactly, please click below and visit my personal website.
www.xxxxxxx.com
There is a Free Video Case Study that will bring lots of clarity to your offer and current business model.
If you find value on it, I also offer a free 45 min Niche Coaching call where we will do an in-depth audit in order to help you get results faster with your online business.
Please feel free to reply if you have any doubts Rich, I’m looking forward to helping you succeed.
If you think you don’t need any help and you are crushing it already, please discard this message.
All the best,
xxxxxxxxxxx (not kisses, just his name removed!)
DO YOU THINK THIS IS SPAM? I'd be interested in knowing where my fellow Community Members stand on this.
I haven't reported him to Kyle (YET), and will give him the opportuntiy to message me again with an assurance that he will not make a habit of doing this to people he has only just connected with, but will at least make time and some prior effort to build up a relationship with them and gain their consent for a such direct approach.
Ladies and Gentlement of the Jury, I will refrain from acting until I receive your wise and impartial counsel. Looking forward to reading your comments, folks!
Have a great WA Day.
Cheers
Rich 🤔
Recent Comments
97
Absolutely spam! and...he should know better since he's been here since 2015. I think it's our duty and responsibility as law-abiding WA members to report this and protect something that is so good.
Thanks for posting!
Cal
You have not been here as long as this other person and you are well aware of the rules. So are the vast majority of those who are active on here. Brand new members are shown, especially these particular rules during orientation and set-up of the account, and again when going through the courses, and again from a variety of other sources on here.
Without any doubt this is spam. The wording, intent behind it and ulterior motives all spell out the same thing. The freebie is there to bait you and is seductive, not in a bad way, but nonetheless, for self-gain. It is an obvious breach of the rules here and by now yes, the person should be well aware of the rules, being here since 2015. Most people who spend almost any amount of time on here, it doesn't take long before they either find the rules themselves or hear about them from other members. This is not an obscure topic on here. The freebie argument does not work.
You are right that folks new to WA doing this should instead, be coached and not reported.
It is extremely likely, from what I have read in the message, that you are not the only one having received this.
Report it.
Daniel
You're probably right about me not being alone in receiving it, Daniel. If he's in the habit of this then I'm surprised he's managed to stay here for 4 years, quite honestly!
In view of that, he certainly does deserve to be reported and I'm weighing it up at the moment. On the one hand, if this scares or embarrasses him out of doing it in future then I'm tempted to let it go. On the other, I feel a sort of sense of obligation to the Community which tempts me not to give him the benefit of the doubt.
It's less than an hour since I logged into my account and saw his message and I'm still feeling the annoyance, so I want to calm down first before I do anything based on emotion.
Cheers
Rich 😃
If in the four years he had been doing this all the time, it's very likely he wouldn't even be here today else, it's something he started doing very recently. Without knowing who this is I have no way of knowing, but you, having received from this person, can somewhat judge how active he has been by the ranking score he has.
If the number is very high numerically, it is likely the person has not been very active, if at all, depending on just how high it is. There are a lot of people on here who remain members but are not active at all (essentially paying but not doing anything with it.) This scenario is not unique to WA but is found in just about every online membership - and is a human trend to have about a 10% out of a membership (where personal effort is required) who are actively involved to the point of getting benefits from being in the membership.
Hands down, if this person has been doing this all along, he would have been booted out a long time ago.
If he has sent this to a significant number of people on here, likely you won't even have to report it, as others probably already have.
I see from the comment's I've received so far that the consensus is that this is indeed spam. Put it this way, why would I need to take advantage of such an offer when I feel that Wealthy Affiliate provides me with everything I need to become a successful online marketer?
And if I didn't feel that way about Wealthy Affiliate, then surely I wouldn't be paying 299 Bucks a year to be here!
There are plenty of places that this pitch could be made outside the Community here, so why risk being kicked out?
Do it on Social Media or something. Maybe even offer Wealthy Affiliate to your prospects. Now there's a novel idea! 😁
Hi Rich! I also received a message from someone asking for help to like his facebook page. I don't even have to click the link whether it is a facebook page or not cause i knew it in the first place that it is website that offers free registration and free gifts with upsells later on. So I told her about that and she says that it is just a mistake.
I am not really sure if that is spamming or not but i guess it is fine if you say no or just ignored his message. Better ask kyle directly or the one invited you here @ wealthy affiliate.
It's ok for someone to ask for likes on their Social Media pages but again, I think there's a right and a wrong way to go about that too.
If a person requests it to the community as a whole via a blog post, then that's different from private messaging someone and asking them to do it, unless of course there have been prior exchanges of messages between them and interest has been expressed. Thanks for commenting.
Cheers
Rich 😃
I agree with you. I think this is spam. I would not appreciate getting that type of email either. Wonder if anyone else received it too?
I haven't received that exact message but, I have received many promotions in my inbox from WA members.
Personally speaking I would consider it spam unless I had asked for the link in a running conversation between the 2 of us.
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I received that same message evidently from the same guy.
Does he have a Spanish sounding name? 😉
Yes he does. He had just followed me and when I followed back I promptly received his message.
I've reported him to Kyle now.
I felt I needed to wait before doing so, as a 'chill pill' was called for. Once swallowed and digested I felt that due to the length of time he's been here he ought to know what the rules are and there's the wider interests of the Community and it's integrity to consider.
Cheers
Rich 😃