So, people don’t like it when you tell them off. Huh.

Date: March 18, 2008

Apparently in a gallant effort to meet my quota of pissing people off, I recently engaged in a little cyber shock and awe. This deserves a bit of a back story, so here goes. Not long ago, I received an email from AN UNNAMED COMPANY IN NEW YORK, telling me how much they loved my site and artwork and that they had linked to my website. The UNNAMED COMPANY sounded really familiar to me–and not in a good way–for some reason, but I proceeded to their website to see the link they mentioned.

What a joke. I was one of over 1,000 sites, in the photography category. Essentially, I was one in thousands. To make matters even shadier, they promised only to leave my link in their database if I made a link to them. Google calls this a link building scheme. A little more searching about them jogged my memory, reminding me that they were a scam company that’s been doing this sort of stuff to artists for years, particularly those international and out of state, who cannot so easily research their behavior. I considered reporting them, at least for the link building scheme, but with me being the busy bee that I am, I deleted the message and went on with life.

They contacted me again in a week’s time, however, asking why I’d not put their link up yet. At this point, I get beyond annoyed and dismayed and want to take some form of action, so I do. I report them to Google and write their employee the following letter:

Dear EMPLOYEE FROM UNNAMED COMPANY,

While the YOUR COMPANY seems nice, I’m really not into link building schemes such as this. What could I gain from this? You would put my link in a directory of thousands, while you would receive a link in a directory of several. The odds of having a link clicked on are obviously in your favor. This sort of excessive, one-sided link building is exactly what screws up Google’s Page Rank system, sadly. It also happens to be entirely against its policy.

I would have felt honored to be in your link index if there were only a handful of other sites, but for some reason 1 out of 1,475 (as of writing this, at least) just doesn’t make my heart go aflutter. Neither do the template emails.

I didn’t reply before, because I was disappointed to see this sort of behavior taking place, but I was willing to pass it by. With receiving this new form email, though, I’ve decided to do something. So I’ve reported YOUR COMPANY’S link scheme to Google.

I’ve also reported the fact that you are scam artists trying to take advantage of up and coming artists. [Your company is well known for doing wrong and has been around for years], taking much and giving little in return. Please don’t contact me any further.

Sincerely,
Lelia Katherine Thomas

Another week down the bend, and I get quite the upset letter from one their PR people. OH NOES. Here is the best part of that employee’s email:

THE OTHER EMPLOYEE just forwarded your letter that contains slanderous comments regarding OUR COMPANY. Your use of the term “scam” before checking all the facts is insulting and particularly offensive to our staff of dedicated hard working employees.

….We say upfront that our services cost money.

Because, you know, telling people that your service costs money is all there is to it. I’m sure they’ll be shocked to see that I’m not so easily swayed by misused terminologies such as “slander,” so I’ve sent a reply:

Dear PR PERSON OF UNNAMED COMPANY,

In order for my comments to be “slanderous,” they’d have to be made to the public, of which they were not. They would also have to be verbal, as that is the context of slander, but I digress. What you speak of is libel, but not even that is the case here. My words were directed solely at THE UNNAMED COMPANY and its employees. YOUR COMPANY really shows its colors when using such weighted language in an attempt to scare me off.

I know you all have been around since [a certain time]. I also know about the numerous artists who feel scammed after paying outrageous upfront costs and getting few, if any, [returns]. I also know that YOUR COMPANY is not ever mentioned by any respectable publications about museums. It must all be a terrible mistake that the words “YOUR COMPANY NAME scam” bring up so many things on the Internet as well.

My feelings about your business aside, however, YOUR COMPANY is participating in link building schemes, which was my main gripe. If you can get people to sign up to all your upfront costs and zero promises…that is your business. It seems to have worked for you [for quite some time], so whatever. However, link building schemes that affect your rank in search engines is something that affects a lot of artists and Web users, and so I was not out of line to report you to Google.

Sorry for not being wowed by your business,
Lelia Katherine Thomas

It feels good to make those who do wrong uncomfortable with what they’re doing. A guiltless company, and certainly a guiltless company’s public relations employee, would have addressed my concerns without becoming defensive and “insulted” and resulting to legal terms to try to make me go away.

Updated on March 19, 2008

Suddenly this company doesn’t feel the need to use a threatening tone with me!

Dear Leila,

Son of a bitch, why is it that we live in a world where the most complex names can be written correctly, but people get to mine and they call me everything but my name? It’s LELIA. L-E-L-I-A. Not Leila, Leia, Lela or any other name that insinuates major or minor connections to Eric Clapton, Star Wars or Futurama. It’s Lelia.

My response was not an attempt to scare you off, we believe that everything that we are doing is completely legit and since you already took the time to report our link exchange program then it is no longer in our hands and there is no point to talk about this.

Oh, I seemingly misunderstand people’s intentions when they try to accuse me of defaming their reputation! Silly me! I should have just agreed with them and apologized for calling their company out for the scam that it is.

Good to know someone thinks their company is “legit”–way to sound professional.

Now the funny thing about this is that, after all that has transpired, I’m somewhat convinced that the three people who have been emailing me are actually just one person.

Comments ordered from oldest to newest.

Mimzy

March 19, 2008 at 12:37 am

link

Haha, I loved reading this. I’ve come across schemes like this, too - there’s never ANY benefit for the artist/blogger at all.

Lelia

March 19, 2008 at 9:33 am

link

Yes, it’s quite bad! I don’t want to give any exact information about how long this company’s been around (as much as I’d love to reveal the name and how long it’s been in existence, I’d rather not have them get their dirty knickers in any tighter knots), but it’s been a long time. A very long time. Before Internet became bigger than sliced bread. They survive by misleading artists who trust them too easily and/or can’t find out much about them from afar.