Do you guys ever get suspicious?

Like I have a couple ads for ball pythons complete with prices and pictures.
Then someone with AOL whose AOL name does not have a profile writes to you to ask how much are your ball pythons?

Sometimes I feel it is someone who just wants to get some kind of tracking information from me.

There was this one time...I get an e-mail with one bad word and nothing else. I reply with "oh you are real grown up...thanks" All of a sudden someone has my IP hhmmm

and lately I have been getting tons of spam mail. and these people are calling me by my first name. Some of them even have my last name. Sometimes I feel someone is spending all day on line just to fill out forms that would send me spam mail.


What do you guys do when someone asks you for the prices of your ball pythons when you only have two for sale and the prices are in the ads? Do you bother responding? or do you think like I do and ask "what is this person up to?

I had a boa up for adoption not too long ago.
And I got e-mail from like three different "zoos" two of them had aol I think. What is a zoo doing asking for free animals? Do they usually do that?

am I going crazy or is it just me?

I get all the same spam without any of the animal inquiries, so maybe they're two different annoying issues. Or maybe they're related, but you'd probably be getting almost as much spam anyway. Is an IP address public information like a phone number?

Erin B.

Relax Ritchie

Spam is on the rise, and will probably continue. They will pull your email address from a yahoo type account or a posting and if your name is associated with that posting they can match the names to the emails. This allows them to use "personalized" subject lines making them more likely to be opened. Sounds like you got picked up on a database and then those databases are sold pretty inexpensively (which means they get spread around fast).

Customers. Rule #1 of business. Customers don't read. It's not uncommon for us to get emails where the customer states they are looking at the pictures of available animals on our site and they'd like to know the pricing. The prices are directly under each individual picture. Learn to let this habit of customers slide by you or it will drive you crazy trying to figure out why

Hi Ritchie, I get alot of people asking for the same info that is in my ads, I answer and give more info.
I don't receive any spam. I receive ads from Bass-Pro and Cabela's but I've ordered from them numerous times and am on their list.
I use a pop up blocker and filters and it's worked so far.Knock on wood.
I do receive about 20 jokes a day from my dad and that is a pain in the butt but I don't want to get his Blood Pressure up so I have them go to a "junk" file. This worked great until my Uncle passed away and I didn't get the email. Wooops!
Later, Rob

If you EVER type your email in a post, on ANY forum or ad "spyders" will find it and you will get spam for years to come. Even your email on your website. I would post it as ritchie@blank-net and tell people after they click on the link to email you to change the dash to a dot. I changed the email on my site and did that and I've gone from honestly 2000-5000 junk emails a month to ZERO! You just have to REALLY watch where you're putting your email.

Without getting into too much technical detail, your IP is what identifies your computer from any other computer out there on the web. If your computer talks to another computer, or to a web server, it lets the other side know what it's IP is, so that the far side knows where to send its reply.

It's like sending an email... the address you send from is automatically included, so that the recipient can reply.

Any place you visit on the web will know what your IP address is. You can use a proxy, but then the proxy will still know your IP.

-Kat Hall

And I got e-mail from like three different "zoos" two of them had aol I think. What is a zoo doing asking for free animals?

I do know of a "zoo" around my area which is pretty much a guy who likes to have lots of animals but he takes in extra money by having it open to the public. So he kind of has a collection that he calls a zoo. He rarely purchases the animals he has, he just waits till someone gets sick of the whatever they bought and want to unload it on someone. He has tons of lemurs and goats, and donkeys, and llamas, and potbellied pigs, a couple of bears some big cats, most of these were "adoptions".

Many "zoos" are owned privatly and are most likely someones collection that they like to make some money off of.

Hi Ritchie, one little piece of advice regarding the spam... tell all you know that when sending you msgs (like when you mass-forward a joke) they should put your address in the CC field, rather than the TO field.
Every name in the TO field is picked up be these 'spydes' and whatever else they got going... when you add it in the CC field (usually below FROM), then these become invisible to those programs..
This seems to have helped somewhat for people I know.

and I know you've heard this before and it may be rather frustrating after a while, but do NOT block them or open and then delete them, because this assures them that you do check them and that just opens the door for them!
It's best to leave them without touching them, or to delete them without opening them.

Hopes this helps somewhat, and dude, my head never stops thinking....I also get paranoid, some times very much... like what you were saying about these peoples intentions??? if I let it, it would just drive me insane!!! (already crazy..lol)

Joe Rollo

I am a customer and I sometimes mess up and email the people before really reading the whole ad (just skimming it) when I am excited about the animals or the pricing, etc and I want to be the first to contact them. I doubt this is whats going on in your case, however, since ball pythons are so readily available that its not like anyone would need to be in a rush to buy them. They are probably just illiterate. I dont really think that, but I just thought I would share my view as a customer more than a salesman.