An Open Letter to the AR Newbie Who Sent Me a Deceptive SPAM Email Message

Dear AR Newbie who Spammed Me with a Misleading and Deceptive Email Subject,

You might want to take a look at the ActiveRain Community Guidelines before diving into the fray with your ridiculous email message:

ActiveRain Community Guidelines

Please note that it says you shouldn't send unsolicited advertising emails.  From week to week, I get a lot of emails from fellow members.  Often, I get messages from others who want my help, or who want to send me business, or who want to tell me something about one of the many groups that I belong to here in the community.  All of these are welcome emails to me.  I am happy to receive any type of genuine correspondence from others here. 

HOWEVER, I don't like getting advertisements thrown at me, just because I have a profile here, along with the other 89,106 members.  In fact, I can probably speak for them, too.  Don't send me an ad telling me that you can close loans that other guys can't close.  This has been the standard sales pitch in the mortgage industry for well over a decade.  If you are going to SPAM me, make it creative or at least compelling in some way. 

As a word of advice, if you are planning to send unsolicited messages to me, at least make them seem somewhat personalized.  Who knows?  I might read a few sentences before I realize that you sent it to 10,000 other people. 

The most offensive part about your email to me was the subject line: "Possible Referral".  Having received a good number of actual referrals from my friends and acquaintances here, I was thrilled to see another email about this, until I clicked to open yours. 

Wait - I see now - you mean that I might have a possible referral for you! 

No. 

I don't. 

And I never will.

Lastly, you might want to consider at least adding a profile picture and/or writing a single blog post before you start to promote your services here. 

Who knows?  You might have had a shot at getting some of my "difficult" loans.  Instead, you lost any potential respect that you might have garnered from me.

I already emailed you back and told you that this was heavily frowned upon here in the ActiveRain community.  I hope you see my message along with the likely thousands of other bounced emails that you must delete or sort through.  If not, you may see this post.  Either way, please don't do it again.

Despite what you may think of me at this point, I do want your business to succeed.  That's why I am offering you these tips.  Take care of yourself.  If you decide not to pursue membership here on ActiveRain, I understand.  It might not be the right place for you.  If it is, I wish you well. 

Sincerely,

Jason Crouch, Broker/Owner, Austin Texas Homes, LLC