Carphone Warehouse is now sending spam to ask for blog spam.

[reddragdiva]

Please do relink this everywhere relevant.

This just arrived and appears genuine. Carphone Warehouse are (a) sending spam (b) to request blog spam. They also have past form of spamming. I suggest not dealing with them, cancelling existing contracts with them, and telling them why.

Delivered-To: dgerard@gmail.com
Received: by 10.102.215.10 with SMTP id n10cs431768mug;
        Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:41:07 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.211.195.3 with SMTP id x3mr5020984ebp.28.1247488867684;
        Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:41:07 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <webpartners@mobiles.co.uk>
Received: from mobiles.co.uk (mail.mobiles.co.uk [81.6.195.106])
        by mx.google.com with ESMTP id 5si330642eyh.50.2009.07.13.05.41.07;
        Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:41:07 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of webpartners@mobiles.co.uk designates 81.6.195.106 as permitted sender) client-ip=81.6.195.106;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of webpartners@mobiles.co.uk designates 81.6.195.106 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=webpartners@mobiles.co.uk
Received: from [195.242.214.21] (HELO ds4)
  by mobiles.co.uk (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 5.2.14)
  with ESMTP id 22484445 for dgerard@gmail.com; Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:41:07 +0100
Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?davidgerard=2Eco=2Euk?=
Sender: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?webpartners@mobiles=2Eco=2Euk?=" <webpartners@mobiles.co.uk>
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?webpartners@mobiles=2Eco=2Euk?=" <webpartners@mobiles.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:41:05 +0100
To: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?dgerard@gmail=2Ecom?=" <dgerard@gmail.com>
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-Printable
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-USER_IP: 195.242.214.20
X-Mailer: JMail 4.3.0 by Dimac
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Message-ID: <auto-000022484445@mobiles.co.uk>

Hello. I`m Chris Conwell, Director at mobiles.co.uk. A wholly owned subsidiary of the Carphone Warehouse Group, we were the UK`s first retail mobile phone website (launched in 1995) and are now the largest web-only mobile phone store in the UK.

I was searching the web for decent potential partners and came across davidgerard.co.uk. I have an idea which I hope you will find useful:-

We would like to have our editorial team research and hand write some content for you to add to a page on davidgerard.co.uk. We will agree a subject with you that is relevant to both of our sites (it won`t be a sales pitch for us!) and will include a single simple text link back to a relevant content page on our site. The content will be uniquely written for you and will not be re-used elsewhere. It should be helpful to your visitors and of course the search engines, as will the presence of a relevant link back to us. Hopefully we will also benefit from the link in the longer term. We are not currently in the position of being able to exchange or return links so we thought this could be a good alternative.

Naturally there are no costs whatsoever for you.

If this isn`t appropriate for you, please accept my sincere apologies for having troubled you.

GETTING A QUICK RESPONSE
I realise you may prefer to simply reply to this email which is no problem and I`ll respond as quickly as I can. However, I have found that email isn`t always as reliable as everyone thinks plus I`m out and about a lot of the time. We have therefore created a simple and quick-to-use response page that provides detailed information and answers to questions on the various options and allows you to send messages to our team . . and lots more. The page is at http://www.mobiles.co.uk/partner-response.html and we have created an access code for davidgerard.co.uk which is 20090711150119IEQFU.

REMOVAL
If you feel I should not have sent you this email, I`m really sorry - please just reply with REMOVE in the subject.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Kind Regards - Chris Conwell
Director
www.mobiles.co.uk
Mobiles.co.uk Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Carphone Warehouse Group PLC Registered in England no. 3253714 at 1, Portal Way, London W3 6RS

Comments

Contact the Office of Fair Trading ?

[diziet]

It seems to me that Carphone Warehouse are offering to enter into a criminal conspiracy, specifically a conspiracy to commit offence(s) against the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (No. 1277)

http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/legResults.aspx?activeTextDocId=3480871

[vampwillow]

eek! I haven't had one of these at any of my domains (obv. not as famous as yours ;-0 ) but *not* a good thing for them to do.

Sure looks like spam...

[(Anonymous)]

...to me. And I believe I have heard that these twits were spamming in years past in the UK as well.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Well.... huh.

[reddragdiva]

It's a pity, because they're actually a reasonable "cheap'n'cheerful" provider of telecommunications products and services apart from this. But this can't be tolerated.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

What sane individual deals with the Carphone Whorehouse anyway? They're like buying a mobile phone from Ryanair.

[reddragdiva]

They can be "cheap and cheerful" at best. I need to list the companies they own, e.g. TalkTalk.

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

They sell their phones unlocked (well, except for exclusives such as the iPhone), which I suspect is not the case with the carriers' own stores.

Having said that, my first UK-based mobile phone was with their home-brand carrier, Fresh, which was genuinely awful. Calling it the RyanAir of mobile carriers would be apt. They were cheap, but provided no feedback on remaining credit and could not be topped up from the phone actually used when credit ran out, necessitating a call from another phone to the top-up service.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

You know what's interesting? I had almost the exact same spam today for an entirely different, also relatively legitimate, company. But much of the same stuff, you know, 'content written entirely for you', a 'single simple text link', 'benefit from the link in the longer term'.

So now I'm wondering whether the source companies are involved at all or if it's just someone abusing affiliate links.

[reddragdiva]

That's why I included the full headers, which appear entirely genuine.

If they're inciting spamming in affiliates, too bad, they're spammers.

[damien-wise.livejournal.com]

A cheerfully written note (on he back of a print-out of said spam) along the lines of "If you feel I should not have sent you this brick, I`m really sorry - please just throw it in the bin"...wrapped around a brick and lobbed through their shopfront window might help get the message across.

[happyblade.livejournal.com]

This suggestion I like.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I suggest not dealing with Carphone Warehouse at all - their incompetence meant I lost my number which I'd had for over 10 years, and that no-one could contact me when I was going into labour.

They claim all they owe me is £12.50 in overpaid line rental, but have presumably sent that to the wrong address for the fourth time...