EmailAppenders Gone? New Firm Surfaces

It seems EmailAppenders has disappeared.

And at the same time, a previously unknown company has emerged pitching at least one marketer on e-mail lists. Evidence indicates the new firm may be related to EmailAppenders, a data seller that has been accused of ripping off marketers by multiple people.

EmailAppenders’ Web site at EmailAppendersWeb.com no longer loads.

A telephone number that was once used to contact Ian Cooper, EmailAppenders’ president of new business development, is out of service. An e-mail to IanC@emailappenders.com—an address once used to contact him—bounced.

Meanwhile, Michael Shostack, a business development manager with a firm he asked not to be named, recently received an unsolicited e-mail pitching him on e-mail lists from someone claiming to be Vanessa Anderson. The message contained no company name.

“Are you looking to add permission based emails to your existing customer and prospect database?” the message began.

“Here’s the solution. In just a few weeks, you can substantially increase, even double, the number of valid email addresses for your snail mail database using email appending service,” it continued.

The e-mail address Anderson used was Vanessa.a@psmail9.com.

When Shostack asked Anderson to supply the name of the company she worked for, he began receiving e-mail from Darwin Jones.

“Vanessa Anderson from our marketing team referred me to you,” Jones’ e-mail began.

“We work for B2BInfoAppenders. My contact details are as below,” he continued.

The phone number in the footer of Jones’ e-mail was 212-931-5157.

Last November, Anderson had an exchange using the Vanessa.a@psmail9.com address with another Magilla Marketing reader who asked not to be named here. The phone number in the footer of Anderson’s e-mail in that exchange was 212-931-5157, the same number listed in the footer of Jones’ e-mail two weeks ago.

When asked for her company’s Web address in the November exchange, Anderson supplied EmailAppendersWeb.com and wrote that the marketer could contact Chris McAlister for more information.

McAlister and Anderson are two of three people named in a lawsuit filed against EmailAppenders by Internet Retailer. The publisher sued EmailAppenders in December, claiming the data seller wrongly claimed it had Internet Retailer’s e-mail list of annual conference attendees for sale.

Earlier this month, no one from EmailAppenders appeared in court to defend the firm against Internet Retailer’s suit, according to Jack Love, president of Internet Retailer’s parent company Vertical Web Media.

In last week’s exchange between Shostack and B2BInfoAppenders’ Jones, Shostack asked Jones if he had heard of EmailAppenders or Event Gain—another company that appears to be related to EmailAppenders. Jones responded: “We have heard of Emailappenders and Event Gain but we are not the same company. We are head quartered in Glendale California.”

Jones gave as his firm’s address 450 North Brand Building, Suite 600, Glendale, CA, 91203.

The address is actually 450 North Brand Boulevard and is a location of Regus, an international company that provides offices, meeting rooms and virtual offices for rent.

Sean Stone, the building’s general manager, said in an e-mail to this newsletter that there is no client named B2BInfoAppenders in his building.

“I do not have a client with that name here at all,” he wrote.

Niether Jones nor Anderson responded to e-mails asking for comment. And Jones did not respond to a voice mail asking him why his telephone number at B2BInfoAppenders two weeks ago was the same as Anderson’s at EmailAppenders in November, and why Regus’ Stone said he has no client named B2BInfoAppenders at the 450 North Brand Boulevard location

Meanwhile, e-mails sent to Magilla Marketing readers over the past year or so—and obtained by this newsletter—from people claiming to represent other list sellers contain striking similarities in their domain constructions, indicating at least a technical relationship between them and EmailAppenders.

An e-mail from someone claiming to be Keith Kentala at Data Champions Online pitching data services came from Keith.Kentala@psmails.com.

An e-mail from someone claiming to be Jeff Parker at NetSalesLists came from JeffP@psmails4.com.

A Raymond Murphy, claiming to be from EmailAppenders, sent his messages from Ramondm@psmail9.com. A prospecting e-mail from Andy Fischer at ListGalaxy came from Andyf@smails69.com. A prospecting message claiming to be from Lance Carter at EmailAppenders came from Lancec@smails69.com.

Is it possible that the similarities between these addresses are coincidental, and that the salespeople using them in various locations across the country are unrelated other than as channel partners? Sure, but it seems unlikely.