“You have been invited to connect as friends with Excessica Publishing”
Friday, April 25, 2008Posted in: Death to all spammers, e-book publishers behaving badly?
Apparently Excessica (you remember them, they’re the publishers who promise “to publish stuff other publishers wont” i.e taboo stories involving incest, Daddy/daughter play, etc) are spamming soliciting readers via Bebo.com.
A concerned reader sent me this e-mail:
Hey Karen, I checked my gmail this morning to find this message in my inbox. I think I’ve visited this publisher (Excissica) once when you did a blog post on them a little while back. But I certainly never gave them my email address or any other information, just browsed around a bit, and I’ve never heard of this bebo.com.
I know your blog requires an email address in order to leave a comment, but IIRC, I took one look at the Excissica thread and said “Not touching that with a ten-foot pole”. …
I’d like to know 1. if anyone else has gotten this unsolicited “invitation” and if they’re regular commenters on your blog (I read every day, but only chime in occasionally) and 2. if they collected my email when I visited their site (which isn’t possible as far as I know) or if they’re scouring your blog for email addresses (do they show up in comments? I didn’t think so). Oh, and if they’ve collected info from commenters on other blogs, if that is indeed what they’re doing.
This is the e-mail that the above reader received:
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Excessica Publishing
Date: Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 10:55 AM
Subject: New invitation from Excessica Publishing
To: —@gmail.comYou have been invited to connect as friends with Excessica Publishing
Please accept or reject this invitation by clicking below:
http://www.bebo.com/in/6483185013a144877234b134…………………………………………………………….
Please do not reply directly to this email.This email was sent to you at the direct request of Excessica Publishing
. You have not been added to a mailing list.If you would prefer not to receive invitations from ANY Bebo members please click here – http://www.bebo.com/unsub/6483185013a144877234
Bebo, Inc., 795 Folsom St, 6th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA.
So, have any of you had this e-mail, or was this just a one-off?
Heather Holland
April 25
8:25 pm
They’re sending invites through MySpace as well, though I don’t remember what it said–I already deleted it.
Shiloh Walker
April 25
8:32 pm
I didn’t get one, but I think Bebo is one of those goofy things where if you sign up, they then spam everybody in your address book. It’s a possibility that whoever set up the Bebo account with Exessica? sp? , is somebody who had your email already.
At least that’s one theory.
AztecLady
April 25
10:20 pm
*blink*
Huh.
Jayne
April 25
10:56 pm
I’ve already gotten 2 requests to join their sleaziness.
CJ England
April 25
11:14 pm
MySpace…just like Heather.
veinglory
April 25
11:45 pm
I get constant spam like this from Bebo, Ning etc etc. I enjoying reporting them as against the terms of service. Unsolicited spam is illegal in most countries and against most terms of service. Frankly I am too sick of it to be nice any more.
Stephani Hecht
April 26
12:00 am
I got a MySpace invite too.
Kayleigh Jamison
April 26
1:00 am
I got a MySpace friend request (which I denied), and a notice that they’d added me on Bebo. As soon as I retrieve my password (haven’t logged into that account in ages) I’m defriending them. I too have no interest in the sleaze.
Of course, I’m an author, so that’s likely how they found me. As for your poor blog reader, Karen, I don’t know.
Marianne LaCroix
April 26
1:42 am
Well, goes to show I am not up on who is doing what. Yeah I got invites from them from both places. I didn’t know what they published though. Good gravy…
Capo
April 26
2:45 am
Oh I don’t know, if I belonged to Bebo I might think its just the sacrifice I have to make in order to join a freebie forum where I can promote every crucial angle and glimmering facet of my fascinating fine self 🙂
However I do have a BIG complaint with this thoughtless publisher. Every time I read that name -Excessia- I get images of Excedrin Migraine tables. And those damned things are so freak’n difficult to get down with my beer.
Anyone else having this issue? Should I switch to water? Maybe a strong ale?
K. Z. Snow
April 26
2:48 am
I’ve seen them spamming romance chat loops.
Puppet Truth
April 26
3:50 am
I got myspace requests recently from them, and ran for the hills. A friend has been myspace-ed by them three times and she keeps denying them.
I think the best thing to do is the mark them as SPAM at Myspace,that way they will stop.
kirsten saell
April 26
4:40 am
So I guess spam is the one uber-taboo we can all agree to hate?
Grrrly
April 26
4:55 am
Haven’t gotten a myspace invite, but I’m the one that notified Karen about the bebo invite. After I checked their profile and was reminded that Selena Kitt is one of the founding “publishers” of Excessica, I remembered that I requested one of the free books she was giving away during free ebook week a while back. Didn’t really care for the author, based on her posts here and elsewhere, but hey, free book, and I wanted to see if the writing was bad as was made out to be. Didn’t know I was going to get free spam with it. *insert eyeroll* But that’s most likely where she got my email address, so shame on me.
If the writing hadn’t been enough to put me off her and her company, this would have done it. If there is one thing I am absolutely unbendable on, it’s people taking my information, given for one purpose, and using it for something entirely different without my express permission. Obviously someone could and did assume that I was interested in the author, ergo I am interested in the company, but to hit me up like this without so much as a “no thank you, just the book please” or “we’re going to sign you up for a mailing list” opt out button at the point of information exchange, that’s just smarmy. And it makes me leery of giving out my email address for legitimate purposes, like contests.
KM
April 26
7:04 am
Grrrly,
So sorry you were subjected to it. Not that I’m defending Selena Kitt in any way – I think she’s a fucktard – BUT if I recall correctly since I have a bebo account myself (waste of time, don’t bother), when you sign up for Bebo, it automatically invites everyone in your email “address book,” and if you’re using gmail, that’s anyone you’ve ever sent an email to, even a single one. Now, you CAN opt out of doing it, I sure as shit did, because I remember when everyone and their mother signed up for Shelfari and I got a million emails asking me to join, then a few weeks later another million emails reminding me to join, then a few weeks later another million emails telling me I STILL hadn’t joined, then… well you get the point. Anyway, the opt out was a tiny little check box that Selena may have simply missed.
Then again, given her attitude and disposition which I have found decidedly unpleasant, she very well could have done it on purpose. Either way, my “fucktard” label stands.
Oh, and for the record, I also denied her friend request on MySpace. The only other person I’ve ever done that to was Rene Lyons/Renee Rocco/Lyrical Press/card carrying member of the fucktard club. Oh, and some pornbot named Saucy.
L.E. Bryce
April 26
7:13 am
Isn’t Excessia the epublisher run by the Literotica-associated Phaze writers (as opposed to the normal Phaze people)?
No, I haven’t gotten anything except generic spam swearing I can be like Ron Jeremy (have you actually seen that ugly dude?) and promising me big $$ if I help some poor African widow move funds out of her late assassinated husband’s country. Every one of those emails that starts “God bless you, my child,” I’m tempted to write back and tell them I’m Jewish.
Capo’s right, though: when I see Excessia, I think Excedrin.
Jaynie
April 26
12:02 pm
I got the myspace one, too.
KS Augustin
April 26
12:11 pm
Ditch the ale, Capo. It’s Excedrin and vodka or nuthin’! I find the astringency from both the tablets and the alcohol lend a tart, yet complementary, note that is masked by the creaminess of ale or the hops-heavy bouquet of bitter.
(Yep, got MySpaced & Bebo’ed as well, but I’m on both, so no surprises there.)
Shiloh Walker
April 26
2:03 pm
Grrly, I know I hate being spammed, especially by the things like Bebo and stuff-oh, man I got an attack from Flixster that was driving me nuts.
But it may not exactly be something that can be blamed on whoever set up the account with Bebo. The ‘community’ sites have a habit of getting into your email addy book (and how, I don’t know) without you even realizing it, and without asking your permission. Some of these sites have it mentioned SOMEWHERE on the site, but it’s buried in small print and requires clicking multiple times to get to it.
There was one that was a book site, I think although it could have been movies, and I was sorta interested so I signed up and the minute I set up the account, it sent out email invites to every fricking soul in my addy book and never once did it ask for permission to do so or to access my addies or to request if I wanted the invites sent out. Since then, I delete every single ‘invite’ request that comes thru without even looking at it.
I totally get being annoyed, but it’s likely the blame lays at Bebo’s feet more than anybody else’s.
Throwmearope
April 26
3:55 pm
I posted a couple of times at Making Light, brain picking for SF/F recs for hubby. Within 10 minutes, I got mega spam for booze, cigars and Viagra. (Probably says a lot about the aging geek audience there.)
They even had advice in the comments on how to post there without getting spammed. I just stopped posting there, period.
I haven’t been spammed because of a romance site ever (that I know of anyway).
Linda
April 26
9:16 pm
You mean Excessica WASN’T an April Fool’s joke?
*boggle*
If they’re legit then they sure as hell should have a better website for starters…
Alexis Fleming
April 27
10:11 am
I got the email through Bebo,inviting me to make them my friend. I was flat out busy with deadlines so never got to it. That invite sat in my inbox for about a week.
So I can handle getting the invite from Bebo. Hey, it’s par for the course with this type of site. What ticked me off no end was when I got an email in my personal email account, not my author email address(and yes, I use a pen name to remind me that I hadn’t answered the first invite. My personal email account is just that. Personal. That’s when I decided to find out who was behind this company. Let me tell you, I wasn’t impressed with my person email address being used.
Nonny
April 27
11:42 am
I haven’t received such an invite, nor a friends request through MySpace, that I’m aware of.
Alexis Fleming
April 27
11:52 am
*groan* Okay, so I should have proofed my post better. Or better yet, waited until I wasn’t so sleep deprived. Sorry about the mistakes, guys. Be kind to me. lol
dining fly
August 1
2:08 pm
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guide2prince.org
March 8
3:59 am
I like prince lol. However, there was once where he fell from a stage. Michael Jackson and James Brown was there too ;D
DC
March 18
6:21 pm
I just heard about a book published at eXcessica that contains a ROMANTIC LOVE STORY about a child being tortured, molested and raped by her father.
Looking at that blasted website, yes, I say blasted becqause it hurts the eyes, apparently they allow anything and everything. Although they say no necrophelia and no pedophilia, they do let it through. Look at their TABOO category and read some of the smut. And what about INCEST???? They allow incest and the worst smut imaginable.
I also found out if you buy a book there it’s the author who sells you the book meaning eXcessica isn’t actually a publisher but just a front for people to self publish their porn. Pretty disgusting if you ask me. I see some well known names on their site. Are these authors hard up for money that they turned to writing filth? Rape?