Spammed with "I have several clients with HUGE budgets"

Contacted by several different "advertisers" with the same come-on e-mail

[yodokame]

We've gotten a bunch of e-mails from different people at different "companies" with identical text (reproduced below). I figured it was some kind of not-completely-on-the-level operation, and have been ignoring most of them, but one woman to whom I responded, before I recognized the pattern, has been going back and forth like she's about to issue an insertion order (but never does).

Anyway, today one of the more recent e-mail senders who I ignored called me on the phone long distance. When I questioned her, she said that she has a "mentor" and that maybe the company has a campaign going where multiple sales people are working the same territory, with the same e-mail text. When I asked who would actually be submitting any orders, she gave the name of yet another company. She said she was calling from New York, and from her voice she sounded like it.

What the heck is going on? Who are these guys? Are they really buying ads? Are they just compiling a database of some sort? Why the multi-level-marketing approach? Have any of the rest of you gotten these? Has anyone actually gotten ad orders? Been paid?

-------[Typical text of E-mail]---------

Hi,
We are interested in advertising on your site.
I have several clients with HUGE budgets.
Your site has been identified as a possible publisher.
We are looking for the following media on a CPM or CPC basis:
BANNERS (300x250's)
Leaderboards (728x90's)
Skyscrapers (160x600's)
POPS
TEXT LINKS
Solo Email Drops
Ads in newsletters

With the following targeting:
US only (Audited)
Frequency Cap of (1 per day)
24 hour out clause
3rd Party Adserver
 
Let me know what ad inventory you have available
Send me the following:
What ad placements you have available:
Pricing for each ad unit:
How much inventory you have available on a monthly basis for each ad unit:
Exactly where the ads will run:

[markwelch]

I get emails like these periodically, and junk them all. Yes, they are collecting data -- this is really just a "fishing" email to gather "web publisher" email addresses that will be resold to other spammers. If they actually wanted data about your site's advertising rates and terms, they'd give you a web form address to submit, rather than vague text requests.

There are many "red flags" in these emails, including:

- lack of any reference to the content/topic
- lack of any reference to demographics (age, gender, etc.)
- no agency (company) name, often no individual name
- lack of any 'site exclusion' rules; nor any positive standards
- the vague reference to a "24-out clause" is a huge red flag

Based on your comment about the phone call, I suspect that this is an MLM scheme of some kind (or possibly a "boiler room" operation, which would more likely be located overseas rather than in New York).