Lately I've been getting invites to a new social network called Quechup. I'm already a member of too many social networks, so to be honest I've ignored these requests. But it seems Quechup has been automatically sending out invites, without the knowledge or consent of the people signing up. I got this email today from someone I know:
Title: Please ignore any Quechup.com Invites - It's a spam engine
Message: I am writing this with profound embarrassment.
I was recently tricked by a spam engine posing as a new social network. I got an invite from someone I knew and trusted, signed up to see what was about. Two days later, Quechup sent out SPAM to my entire address book.
Please ignore or delete all emails claiming to be from me that mention a site called Quechup.com.
Please also accept my apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
I won't mention the name of the person who sent this message, because it isn't their fault. Clearly Quechup has broken the golden rule of social networks and abused the trust of their users. Quechup's tagline is "the social networking platform sweeping the globe" - however it seems to be doing that via an email spam campaign.
Our recommendation: stay away from Quechup. You may also adopt my own current rule and not sign up to new social networks unless there's a clear - and new, unique - benefit to you. After all, how many social networks do you need?
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I get Flixster emails all the time.
Posted by: Jay | September 8, 2007 4:59 PM
I got two of those invites in the last couple of days.
Posted by: Dillon Thomas | September 8, 2007 5:35 PM
Read thier privacy notice:
"We share much of our data, including personally identifiable information about you"
Scary stuff.
Posted by: Eran Hammer-Lahav | September 8, 2007 5:40 PM
I've gotten four emails in the last month from people I didn't know -- so I checked out the site but didn't sign-up for a service. Glad to hear it is bad news! Thanks for the heads up.
Posted by: Martin Ringlein | September 8, 2007 7:11 PM
Sounds like this social network is a social experiment. see how many people will happily click through a disclaimer saying all their personal information will be available to anyone. Probably not a bad business opportunity at the same time. :)
Posted by: David Novakovic | September 8, 2007 7:45 PM
The golden rule I always follow with these things is to never give my webmail login to any site. That seems to be the way these sites find info about your contacts and then spam them.
Posted by: Jono | September 8, 2007 7:57 PM
I think the most important piece of advice we should be passing on as far as Quechup is concerned is, mark Quechup invites as spam. Don't just delete them, don't just ignore them... help make sure every mail system and spam filter stops these things before anyone even sees them.
Posted by: Ryan | September 8, 2007 9:26 PM
Richard
Thanks for this article. Even sending nastygrams to the morons at Quechup management did not help so I had to move my contact list to a new a/c and delete all saved contacts after I send msgs. What a damn nuisance, hope these guys get crucified. Maybe google, yahoo, and microsoft will listen to experts like you and others and disable's Quechup's access to their site/mail system/whatever it takes...
Gary Valan
Posted by: Gary Valan | September 8, 2007 10:36 PM
I got too on my personal email, gmail ID and even my official ID. I've marked their domain as spam in my mail filters. You should experienced Indian SOcial Network sites, there are many Indian sites that do this automatic invites again and again.
Posted by: Brajeshwar | September 9, 2007 1:40 AM
Well said Ryan! I am with you on that effort!
Posted by: Martin Ringlein | September 9, 2007 7:15 AM
I received one invitation and signed up but luckily did not give any address book info out. However, I note my spam has increased: this could be due to the natural increase of spam.
Posted by: Jack Yan | September 9, 2007 4:08 PM
Same goes for Yaari.com - an indian social network that has been spamming my address book repeatedly
Posted by: Clint Schmidt | September 9, 2007 4:33 PM
Good idea about the spam notification. I received an invite today and an hour later a similar apology letter from my friend.
Maybe we should make sure we know who's the head of this thing, so when it folds we won't be fooled by their new scam.
Posted by: People in the Sun | September 9, 2007 7:51 PM
These guys do exactly the same thing: http://b4uparty.com They spammed everyone in my contact list and they do it behind the scenes without telling you! Scary stuff.
Posted by: Connnector | September 10, 2007 6:51 AM
Wooooah there everyone, this is how rumours get started.
I known these guys (if it is still owned by the same two)and have worked for them. They are really decent and reputable people who would never ever intentionaly do the things you are saying. They have openly worked against such garbage. this all sounds dodgy to me.
Please, Please, let me speak to them and let them know about this. We must give them the right to reply. I'm sure they will be horrified as am I, I was a test pilot for this site.
Andy
Posted by: Andy in Spain | September 10, 2007 7:55 AM
This is not good, spam is an internet crime, this site should be closed
Posted by: Jason | September 10, 2007 8:36 AM
amazing how "snippets" of information can completely change the meaning of things. Lets look at a few of the comments here:
1. Eran Hammer-Lahav: regard to the privacy statement, put the whole sentence in there before scaremongering -
"We share much of our data, including personally identifiable information about you, with our parent and/or subsidiaries"
NOT so scary, in fact standard in privacy policies for Yahoo, Microsoft, Google - quick cancel all your web services, get that operating system off of your computer.. whatever!
Oh yeah not to mention that all your Facebook details get shared with the developers of all those extra applications you install on Facebook, yes that's right most of them are not developed by Facebook and have nothing to do with that company but they get access to all your Facebook details - now that's worrying given a Facebook app can be developed by some computer undergrad - whats he doing with your details and where's he storing them?
2. Ryan: "mark Quechup invites as spam" - there's a link at the bottom of the invites to stop getting any more mail from Quechup, pretty standard stuff. I've got invites Quechup before, since clicking on that no more. I've also got invites from Yahoo groups and done the same thing. Other sites that send you "reminder" invites after 3 days, 1 week, etc. are much more annoying.
Posted by: mike | September 10, 2007 9:08 AM
quick update. For curiosities sake I just joined Quechup after getting an invite. The second step of the sign up process is the address book check thing.
First off its an optional step, there's a "skip this bit" link on there. Anyway I went ahead and checked the address book using a throw away email address with a handful of other equally throw away or fake addresses and the address of the person that invited me. It returned a page with a match for the 1 address of the person who invited me and the rest listed ready to invite.
From what i can see it seems none of these people are reading what's on the page before going click happy. Here's an idea, read stuff first before going sounding off about it!
Posted by: Sean | September 10, 2007 9:24 AM
Shelfari has done the same thing with my contacts. Watch where you click. New rule: don't import your contacts unless you've been on the site for a while and can trust it.
Posted by: Paul Thrasher | September 10, 2007 11:39 AM
Your comment is so very timely. The only reason I signed up was because it appeared that my brother had invited me to be a friend. Once I did sign up I was not able to access anything related to him. I found myself wondering at the time why I needed them since I have so many other, live, socially active things that do this. You read my mind to comment about this as I was going to search your posts to see what your recommendation was on this. Love that telepathy thing you've got! Does it come in a blidget?
Posted by: Elizabeth McLean | September 10, 2007 2:42 PM
My biggest beef with this company and the Mr. Finch's (CEO and VP) is this: after I unsubscribed, it kept my profile up and allowed users to "join" me, and continued to send service emails to me. And that is aside from the spamming my entire contact list. And by the way, the standard for user disclosures is "clear" and "concise", not "arguably disclosed."
Posted by: Sue | September 10, 2007 3:34 PM
Yaari.com (http://www.yaari.com) is a spammer with similar modus operandi.
Posted by: Supreet Sethi | September 11, 2007 4:55 AM
There is no defending Quechup people. Ignore the comments saying it was a mistake.
As a matter of fact this is a very common way to building a network - but - its like taking a line of cocaine. Big Up then a big down - witness the Quechup alexa figures. This type of traffic doesn't stay around - a better idea is to build a service which differentitates itself and becomes useful.
In short Quechup is now dead in the water. They used to ask 5GBP per month membership, then went free, started spamming, now, of course, they can't go back to the paid model.
Bye Bye Quechup - you over spammed the sauce.
You wont be missed.
Posted by: Neil | September 25, 2007 4:02 AM