Have I got a blog post for you! This is what happen to me today. I have been looking for a new place to rent, so I was looking on Craigslist like most people do these days. Let me tell you JUST ABOUT the most annoying thing on earth. On Craigslist there seems to be a trend. People or businesses are using Craigslist to place fake posting. They are then taking your email address and contacting you for some other commercial purpose.
See they fucked up, because they got “me” instead. In the internet world harvesting email addresses in this manner is viewed as unethical marketing practices and is referred as Back-hat, pretty much the bottom of the barrel when it comes down to it. After this documentation, I am on both knees praying to God they attempt to contact me again with their spam email.
Why would someone what to do this? To avoid paying for leads, as-it-turns-out, RENT TO OWN, RTO, and keywords like this, with housing foreclosures these leads are selling at an all time high!
*Also a fun fact – this market is very untapped, but very difficult to make good solid leads in. Because most of the people they are looking for are more or less suckers. Being a Webmaster, if I was to take 15 mins out and make a landing page with a simple email capture. With the opportunities available in this market I would be Larry Flint raking in the money in almost no time. Easily misleading people into thinking they where going to be offered a “real opportunity”, BUT… I would be much more convincing than some amateur spam email.
The really sad part about all this is there are many genuine hard working people looking for legitimate opportunities to own homes and this is what they are left with.
The spam email I received after responding to this craigslist posting:
From: Lisa Townsend – [email protected]
Date: Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 9:42 AM
Subject: RE: $1015 / 3br – Welcome Home! (Golden)
Hi Kimberly,
Thanks for replying to my ad on Craigslist.
Before I get to the details about this property, let me quickly introduce myself and share with you what our company does…
I’m Lisa Townsend and I work for a company called “Rent To Own Helpers” where we help people move into their ideal home by buying it for them…
This way our clients get the exact home they want versus settling for just “what’s available” to rent.
To learn more about our program and get all of the details, go to our website:
Here’s how our program works…
We will show you ANY of the homes for sale on the entire market… we let you choose the home you want… and then PURCHASE it for you.
We then, do a rent-to-own with you until you can ultimately OWN it for yourself… and you’ll need ZERO or little money down to do this.
We’ve worked with hundreds of families, in just the last few years, helping them become homeowners through our program.
We don’t charge any costs or fees to you for this service… in fact, we will NEVER ask you to pay us any money, ever, for ANYTHING.
When you choose the home you want, we get paid by the seller for buying his home… this makes the deal “win-win” because we only get paid when you get what you want.
We’ve made our process very EASY…
The first thing you want to do is go to our website and let us know EXACTLY the type of home you’re looking for.
We can help you move into your ideal home no matter what you’re looking for…
How many bedrooms and bathrooms do you want?
What area or school district do you want to be in?
What monthly payment amount will you be comfortable with?
Do you need a basement or a fenced yard?
Do you prefer a ranch-style home or 2 stories?
On our website, you can choose “all of the details” that are important to you in your next home… and we are COMMITTED to helping you find it.
To get started and let us know what kind of home you’re looking for, just go to our website here:http://www.rtohelpers.com
I look forward to working with you…
Your Friend,
Lisa Townsend
Customer Service Representative
Rent To Own Helpers,LLC
www.RTOHelpers.comP.S Remember, go here if you need help or have
questions:
Next time let me recommend a Craigslist posting like this:
Investment firm has Rent to Own and lease option opportunities for people looking to achieve home ownership in a difficult lending market where bank are not lending, BUT we are making home ownership possible for many people. If you want to own a home, we want to talk to you!
- Foreclosure OK!
- Bad Credit OK!
- Late Payment OK!
Your Friend… lol
