Filed in archive Spam News by Sue Walsh on April 19, 2008

Popular social networking site Reunion.com has been outed as a spammer. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, the site dupes people into joining by sending an email pretending to be from someone who's looking for them. Once the person signs up, their address book is scraped and the site spams them with the same type of email. Nice, huh? Here's an excerpt of one victim's story:

West L.A. resident Elaine Schmidt experienced Reunion.com's aggressive marketing for herself when she received an e-mail the other day that appeared to be from a longtime acquaintance.

It said: "Hi, I looked for you on Reunion.com, the largest people search service - but you weren't there." The e-mail instructed her to click on a link to see who else has been searching for her.

Curious to see if her acquaintance had left a message, Schmidt, 44, clicked on the link and found herself at Reunion.com's site, where she was prompted to register so she could see who'd been searching for her.

In Schmidt's case, the e-mail that prompted her to open her address book to the company appeared to come from Vera Eck, a santa monica psychotherapist whom Schmidt has known for a while.

"I wasn't searching for her," Eck told me.

Just an hour or so before Schmidt received her e-mail, Eck, 46, said she received a message from what appeared to be the father of one of the kids in her son's Cub Scout pack. Curious to know why he was searching for her, she registered at Reunion.com to see if her acquaintance had left a message.

Eck provided access to her Gmail address book as part of the registration process. And so it goes.

The bottom line is that Reunion.com is employing a despicable marketing practice. If you get an email from them, delete it!

Related Entries:

Anti-anti-spam spam: Spam is becoming plain silly - 11 January 2007
Networked Printers New Weapon for Spammers - 14 January 2008
Spammers Using Google To Evade Filters - 25 January 2008
Infamous Spammer Sandford Wallace Busted Again - 31 January 2008

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Permalink: Beware of Reunion.com

Tags: spam spammers address book scraping reunion.com spam la times agressive marketing reunion beware+reu

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Vote for Beware of Reunion.com:

Currently 8.94/10
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Rating: 8.94 out of 16 vote(s) cast.

Response from: Jane (05/15/08 1:47am)

People who've received spam from reunion.com should forward the email to the FTC at spam@uce.gov

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/07/newspamemail.shtm

Response from: Susan (07/24/08 2:49pm)

I am a Reunion.com member and didn't choose to use the address book search feature when I signed up. I don't like it and don't use it on other social sites either, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, because I don't feel comfortable.

Response from: Lori (08/19/08 3:11pm)

Hi there. Thanks for communicating this to the general public. My address book was snarfed this am without my permission and 300 emails were sent to contacts because I was unaware of this practice of not utilizing opt in/out protocols.

Please let your readers know they can file a complaint against www.reunion.com by accessing the Federal Trade Commission website and "filing a complaint. They can also file a complaint via the Southland BBB in California.

For more information on the practice reunion.com is using, check out their wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reunion.com

By all means, this company doesn't seem to be taking privacy seriously and needs to be forced to the same regulations the rest of the world is espoused to.

Response from: RecordOnlineGuide.blogspot.com (11/05/08 10:12am)

As technology advances, these records will be stored and made available in easier to access ways by the authorities themselves.someone can doing it simply speeds up the process.

Response from: neon tabela (08/29/09 12:27pm)

te?ekk�rler. payla??m ve bilgiler i�in.

Response from: tombola bingo (09/15/09 8:29am)

I am also a poor victim and I don�t know why these spammers always look at me I am sick of these and don�t have a place to escape.

Response from: poquer (10/23/09 3:05pm)

I have heard this before too that reunion.com is spamming bu I was not sure but reading it here again is somehow giving me a clue to what I've heard before was not just a rumor, I don�t know why such high PR sites got spams?

Response from: Michiel Van Kets (11/23/09 8:45am)

Thank you for publishing this information.Do you think reunion.com is a Google sponsored website?i prefer classmate.com because its more authentic.i guess very cheap agencies handle regulating, controlling,and prosecuting all this thing.the repute is not good