At comm-press we have to fight with uncountable numbers of emails everyday that range in an open scala between unwanted, idiotic and impudent.

With every advertising email the danger of not noticing serious emails is growing.

For spam senders from oversees we train our adaptive junk filter system. We made some very impudent senders from Germany get admonished.

It was convenient that a advertising facsimile of the “New Robinson List” arrived at our office which offered a free of charge entry into the Robinson List. The Robinson List is a institution where you can leave your address data for getting protected against unwanted advertising. Serious advertising senders compare these lists with their mailing list to avoid sending unwanted annoyance.

We accepted the free of charge offer and sent our details via facsimile. The wording was as follows:

 Urgent message due to raising unwanted advertising

Dear Sir/Madam

due to growing amounts of unwanted advertising the New Robinson List proceeds against advertisers.
Protect your company and assign to the Robinson List for protection against unwanted advertising via phone, facsimile, e-mail and mail.
We take your details free of charge into the new Robinson List. Advertisers are to delete your these data from their advertising registries, so you will get less advertisment.

Just fill in the below section and send it via facsimile back to 069 – xxx xx xxx

We will take your data into the New Robinson List immediately.

Best regards

Executive Board
Robinson List

As spam mails usually try to frighten with subject lines like “continuing blocked!” we should have been warned when we got the advice “Urgent message...”. Serious providers would never use such excited expressions. 

Contrary to the exemplary spam mail which exposes as unbelievably stupid with phrases like “Dear Mr. PayPal: attention! Your PayPal Account has been limited!” we have been surprised when we received a couple of weeks later an invoice of 350,-- € excl. VAT.

Together with the invoice they sent – as a piece of evidence – a copy of our signed order, showing the fine print: 

Please add me to the New Robinson List against unwanted advertising.

The entry into the New Robinson List is free of charge. We will provide call centers and other advertisers with your data for comparing the lists. These companies are to delete your information from all advertising registries, so you will get less advertisements.

Furthermore, we offer to forward your details to advertisers to delete them. For this service we charge you 350,-- € annually. This service prolongs each year if you do not cancel this service. Your data will be transferred twice a year to up to 320 advertisers for deletion. If you want to book this optional service sign the below section. If you do not sign it we will register your data free of charge to the list.

We objected the invoice.

The real Robinson List

A glimpse onto the website of the real Robinson List shows that they are already aware of the rip-off and proceeding against it. 

On their website you can find the following advice:

PLEASE NOTE

Every now and then unauthorized third parties try to gain money by selling protection referring to the Robinson List.

The current example is the “New Robinson List”. We requested the offerer already by threatening to sue them to erase the phrase Robinson List from their name.

These kind of offers are not related in any way to the actual Robinson List and are not allowed to act in our name.

The entry into the Robinson List is ALWAYS free of charge for the consumer! Please inform us immediately if you recognize any infringements.

The “false” website http :// neue-robinsonliste . de, which I do not want to link here for avoiding any further support, looks quite similar to the original website, though they avoided too much similarity that they can not be claimed as a plagiarism.

Significantly, our objection to the invoice was sent back to us with notice “address unknown”. But at least the provider reacted due to our facsimile we sent parallel to the objection via mail. He explains that there is no possibility to cancel the order as it has been fulfilled already. 

Defensive measures

Our attorney told us to do the following:

We should object the order, cancel and sue them due to misleading and non-intrinsic value. After that we should do nothing and wait. It is to expect that debt collection agencies will send invoices demanding to pay which we are supposed to collect. If a default summons arrives we should object and after that the opposition is to explain their interest. The attorney will take action after this procedure, but it is not to be expected to go this far.

The consumer advice center advised us to ignore the whole thing. If any letters by debt collection agencies arrive we should contact the “real” Robinson List, so they are able to manage this with their attorneys.
Sending advertising facsimiles like the New Robinson List does is exactly this kind of forbidden advertisements and the regulating authority is chasing these kind of companies with sensitive punishments up to 25.000,-- €. The “real” Robinson List is already reacting against this facsimile spam.

What a disgusting way of earning money! I am absolutely speechless that there are people who try to exist on these parasitic ways of life...

We are going choose the first way described to handle it. We face potential letters of debt collection agencies calmly...