Why do spammers think they're not just pissing people off?

In particular, I'm referring to these Ylunch.com guys who are spamming up a storm on the Chowhound Chicago board. I'm not sure if they haven't discovered LTH yet or if they're being deleted here as well.

When I see these kinds of tactics, I make a special effort NOT to use their services or go to their restaurant. Are there actually people who see that sort of unscrupulous marketing and use the service as a result? Or are these people just shooting themselves in the foot?

If anyone cares, they also seem to own ewonton.com, so there's another site I am boycotting.

Here's their contact info- If anyone is in the vicinity, go throw a rotten egg at their office for me, please?

Hi,

Spammers will be nuked here like they are everywhere else.

Your gut reaction is something they don't seem to consider when they abuse forums. Their attempts at promotion are backfiring brilliantly. Whereas a reliable poster independently cheering their charms and services is a magnet.

We are lucky, so far, there has been little to nuke here. Though we are alert, cognizant and appreciate your comments. When you do identify a likely spam or shill, do e-mail a moderator.

Have a pleasant holiday.

Regards,

Saturday I saw one of the ylunch.com postings on CH before it was deleted, looked at the site and then politely but unequivocally flamed it on CH. Both stood for a little while before deletion. That site is a travesty. Why they want anyone to see their farce is beyond me. I searched under ZIP 60625, which covers almost all of Lincoln Square and Albany Park, under a number of categories including American, French , Greek, Middle Eastern and Pizza. The only restaurant that came up was a pizza parlor in Deerfield. Also got no or a pathetically small number of hits for Evanston, Skokie and Naperville.

That site is a travesty. Why they want anyone to see their farce is beyond me. [/quote]

I was wondering who else got spammed by them. I actually logged on to see who they were and what it was about and couldn't believe that they had either the gall or stupidity to even put it out there.

The initial spam message was unformatted, riddled with typos and in no way suggested a legitimate business, let alone an attractive one. The site simply doesn't seem to be functional yet.

I did a zip code search for my neighborhood, the results seem to be their entire database, uncategorized. Most of the entries don't actually have any links or info. And there are literally pages and pages of Burger Kings under "B", which I can't imagine anyone is going to use a service to try to find.

Surely, they are their own worst enemy. (Though in that context one is reminded of the classic rejoinder, "Not while I'm alive.")

They sent me email directly telling me that "since I posted on Chowhound" I would be interested in their site. Thanks, I really didn't know how to look up the phone numbers of the nearest Burger King.

My favorite thing about the site is their "Advertising Opportunity" page, which basically says, in a nutshell, "People are using the internet, so they will come to this site."

A direct quote:
"In no time, YLUNCH.COM will service the entire Chicago suburban area and become the premier suburban dining and entertainment portal."

ekreider wrote:

Saturday I saw one of the ylunch.com postings on CH before it was deleted, looked at the site and then politely but unequivocally flamed it on CH.

Disclosure: I am a moderator and am involved in removing such shills on the LTH Forum. Shills have no place here.

But the above quote causes me some concern. First, this whole thread runs the risk of increasing traffic to their site. Maybe not favorably and in the long term, but if they are tracking their marketing efforts and note a meaningful increase in hits after the posts on CH, they will be back. That does not mean anyone should not or cannot discuss this - only that the discussion does serve their purpose to some degree. Be aware of that.

More important, though, are some rules of engagement about shills.

- Please do not flame them.

Flaming politely is certainly better than impolitely, but flaming is just being unpleasant, justifiably or not, and we really want as little of that as possible on the Board.

- Let's not throw around a lot of accusations of shilling. Send a PM to any moderator, please, and let us deal with it.

It usually is not 100% clear whether someone is a shill. If we get fewer shills than CH, which seems to be the case, it probably is because we require registration. That makes it a little more difficult to hit and run anonymously. But the fact remains that someone who looks a lot like a shill could just be a professional of another sort, say a restaurant reviewer, who composes posts in a professional manner with comparative details that most of us would not include (yes, this is a real example). And we want to show restaurants and related professionals every courtesy so they will be happy to share their knowledge with us (which can be both fun and informative). We think it enhances the value of this Forum to be friendly to the professionals and part of that is to focus on our experiences, and not unproven accusations. And I think it fair to assume we all like restaurants, food providers, and their ilk, or we would not be here at all.

- This last one is just me speaking and does not represent the view of the Forum. Shills are more ignorant than evil. Please keep that in mind. One of my goals is to educate and convert them. (Spammers are, by this time, a completely different story, but I digress.)

As remarked, they do not really get good exposure by shilling unless they are so crafty that no one recognizes the shill. So it is counter productive. On the other hand, we would happily welcome a posting announcing their service, product or place with some open, intelligent detail on what they offer. In return, they can get some folks that are likely to try it out, and provide some frank, knowledgable feedback. Sounds like the old win/win to me. We would like to educate them on how to promote their offerings properly on the Forum, with full disclosure, and with much more benefit to their business. But this requires a positive, constructive exchange, not a flaming.

Anyway, report shills and let us try to convert them, please. Let's try to avoide flaming them here, as all sorts of bad things can happen once the flame starts, including flaming an innocent person, escalating flame wars, and generally making the forum much less hospitable.

Having said that, be assured we have no tolerance for shills.