email and sueing for spam

[alligatorob]

What is the name of your state? Florida

I rent a beach house in Florida via internet advertisement. About twice a year I send an email to everyone who has corresponded with me about the house advertising upcoming availibility. I know I sometimes have people in my directory who corresponded with me for other reasons but most were people who first contacted me about the house. I always offer to take people off of my email list and when they ask to be removed I try and remove them, I may not be 100% successful in this, but I try and am pretty good.

In response to my most recent email I got a very nasty reply from someone threatening to sue me for spaming him. I don't know who he is or how he got onto my mailing list, and I have subsequently take him off. My question is can I be sued for what I do? The email I got says:

"Florida statute F.S. 365.1657 allows ME to sue YOU for $500 per SPAM transmission. It is part of the Florida Telemarketing Act, F.S. 501 part IV."

I can't find this statute. Is this for real, can someone who does what I do get sued for spaming?

Alligatorob

 

[racer72]

Tell the guy to go pack sand. The statute he referenced deals with faxes and fax machines, not the internet. And only the Attorney General can sue.

365.1657 Intrastate use of facsimile machine for unsolicited advertising; prohibition; penalties; injunctive relief.--

(1) It is unlawful for any person to use a machine that electronically transmits facsimiles of documents through connection with a telephone network to transmit within this state unsolicited advertising material for the sale of any real property, goods, or services.

(2) The Attorney General may bring an action to impose a civil penalty and to seek injunctive relief. The civil penalty shall not exceed $500 per violation. Each transmission shall be considered a separate violation.

History.--s. 1, ch. 89-95.

Also, how did you obtain his email address? If he originally sent you an email, it is not spam. I went through a couple of similar incidents in the past. I notified both that they had received emails from me because they had previously sent me and email.

 

[Eugenesf]

Damn spammers

Maybe the guy doesn't have the right to sue you but you don't have the right to send him spam letters. And what do you mean I try and remove them?? It's not question of trying or not. If you don't know how to remove a person from your mailing list, you shouldn't have one. If someone sends you an email asking how are you doing you can't just plug his email onto your list and then start harras him/her with your "advertisement" once or twice a year.

I am sorry, maybe my post sound a bit rude, but I just hate people like you who gets the worst of the Internet. Because of people like you we will always have our inbox full of spam, because of people like you we will have to change email address because of the ammount of spam we get, because of people like you companies will loose great ammounts of money because they still have to serve those emails and finally because of people like you email addresses get distributed among spammers. WHY? Because when you send an emails to many people at once and have no idea how to do it right, any of those people can "borrow" your list and start sending them emails. In the end it's virtually impossible to sort your emails, because of the ammount of spam.

Something to think about.

 

[racer72]

Eugenesf, I would be willing to guess that well over have the emails folks receive are not spam, but folks think that it is spam. Enter a contest, buy something online, or in some cases, just visiting a website, and most folks do not realize that their email address is now fair game for online marketers. How many people take the time to read the license agreement or contest rules. Not many, most click ok or enter. Almost all have a disclaimer that by agreeing to the agreement or rules, that their email will be supplied to other parties that may have items you may be interested in. And all online forms are required to have an opt out box next to the email address box. A click there and no one else get their email address.

You slammed the OP for allegedly sending spam when it is clear he was sending out information that the recipients asked for. It is possible to make mistakes and send the info to someone that did not ask for it but that would hardly be considered spam. I think you owe the OP an apology.

 

[alligatorob]

Thanks racer, I appreciate your advice. You are right this person first corresponded with me asking about the house. I don’t buy addresses or get them in any other way, only from people who write me first.

Eugenesf, I cannot always remove people who asked to be removed, this is harder to do than it sounds. Many people have multiple email addresses and have email forwarded from one to another. If the email I send out is forwarded and the person replies from the account it was forwarded to I may have no way of knowing that I need to delete both email addresses. I also get multiple messages from the same person from different accounts, unless they have the same name on both, or ask me to remove both I can’t find all their addresses. Sometimes I get multiple inquiries from different people in the same family. Anyway, removing people from my address list is not so easy; it only works if they send me all their email addresses.

All of the people in my address book contacted me first. As racer says, if you don’t want this kind of mail make sure you don’t ask for it. Also be advised if you respond to someone asking to be removed from their mailing list it will only work for sure if you have only one email address, and if they cooperate.

 

[Eugenesf]

Eugenesf, I would be willing to guess that well over have the emails folks receive are not spam, but folks think that it is spam. Enter a contest, buy something online, or in some cases, just visiting a website, and most folks do not realize that their email address is now fair game for online marketers. How many people take the time to read the license agreement or contest rules. Not many, most click ok or enter. Almost all have a disclaimer that by agreeing to the agreement or rules, that their email will be supplied to other parties that may have items you may be interested in. And all online forms are required to have an opt out box next to the email address box. A click there and no one else get their email address.

You slammed the OP for allegedly sending spam when it is clear he was sending out information that the recipients asked for. It is possible to make mistakes and send the info to someone that did not ask for it but that would hardly be considered spam. I think you owe the OP an apology.

Maybe I was a little too negative and I am sorry for that, but I still don't think he has the right to send emails to everyone who ever contacted him. If I send an email to someone it does not give him/her the right to use my email in any other way than to reply to my question. If everyone would collect emails and then send out stuff they think are important can you imagine what "checking email" would be. If you want to sell your car you don't send out emails to everyone who ever contacted you, do you? That is exactly what is happening here. If alligatorob wants to have a mailing list he should ask people if they want to be notified about deals, specials atc when replying to their question so that only the people who actually want to hear from him again would.

 

[MSWCCC]

It's basically spam in that it's advertising, but if they DID contact you about the house first and the last you heard they had some interest, I'd think it was courteous to let them know what's up. If you signed off with them not interested, take them off if you can.