MainSleaze

Wyndham hotels and resorts is continuing to send offers to the old, long-closed email address that I blogged about a few weeks ago. In addition, it is now hitting another similar email address. :/ The ESP is Cheetahmail, a subsidiary of Experian.

Wyndham needs to clean up its list. It probably accepted subscriptions for years, ignored bounces, and never checked to see whether the email addresses on the list had actually been subscribed by the owners of those email addresses. In addition, it might have purchased lists included in its own list. Companies often do not know what their employees are doing, and marketing professionals are not always as careful about their data acquisition as they should be. Companies that spam are primarily responsible for their spamming, not their ESPs, although ESPs are supposed to help them do their bulk emailing correctly.

However, I heard from a Cheetahmail representative last week, the day that this blog went live. I know that Cheetahmail is well aware of this blog and the issues it has raised regarding some of their customers. I had hoped to see some effort made to clean up a few these issues. Cheetahmail is part of a large company; Experian itself is huge. Like many large companies, it probably has trouble making quick changes. However, would it be so difficult to force a review of customer lists when customers are hitting spamtraps?

With any of the spamtraps that this customer is mailing, a quick cleanup of the list that drops email addresses that have not responded within the past two years would be sufficient to clear out these spamtraps. In addition, it would clear out a lot of deadwood — email addresses that no longer exist, email addresses whose owners have long since filtered out these emails, and email addresses that have been abandoned by their owners because of the volume of unwanted (and often unsolicited) bulk email. A year would be more reasonable, and would result in clearing out a great many of the Cheetahmail issues that I am seeing with many customers who are hitting one or two of my spamtraps.

Sending IP: 66.165.100.125

Spam Sample:

Actual Headers:

Received: from mta124.cheetahmail.com (mta124.cheetahmail.com [66.165.100.125])
        by <xxx> (Postfix) with SMTP id <xxx>
        for <xxx>; Wed, 26 Oct 2011 10:xx:xx -0500 (CDT)
DomainKey-Signature: <xxx>
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:xx:xx -0000
Message-ID: <<xxx>@mta124.wyndham.chtah.com>
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:rm-<xxx>@wyndham.chtah.com>
From: "Wyndham Weekly Escape" <Wyndham-support@wyndham.chtah.com>
To: <xxx>
Subject: Stay 2, Get 2 Nights FREE Plus $100 Credit!
MIME-Version: 1.0
Reply-To: "Wyndham Weekly Escape" <support-<xxx>@wyndham.chtah.com>
Content-type: multipart/alternative; boundary="=<xxx>"

Readable Email:

From: Wyndham Weekly Escape <Wyndham-support@wyndham.chtah.com>
To: <spamtrap>
Subject: Stay 2, Get 2 Nights FREE Plus $100 Credit
Reply-To: Wyndham Weekly Escape <support-<xxx>@wyndham.chtah.com>

To view the graphic version of this message go to:
http://wyndham.chtah.com/a/<xxx>

====================== WYNDHAM WEEKLY ESCAPE ======================

Stay 2, Get 2 Nights FREE Plus $100 Credit!

Savings of 50%

Participating resorts in Florida, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Dominican
Republic, Mexico

Save on your escape to exotic and tropical destinations filled with
relaxation and fun! Pay for two consecutive nights and receive the
following two nights free, plus enjoy a $100.00 (USD) food and beverage
credit per stay for use at the resort during your stay.

Click here for more information:
http://wyndham.chtah.com/a/<xxx>/mainoffer

===================================================================

Terms and Conditions apply for the offers included in this email.

For terms and conditions go to:
http://wyndham.chtah.com/a/<xxx>/spcloffers

Subscriber information:
To be removed, make changes or to sign up for Wyndham mailings go to:
http://wyndham.chtah.com/a/<xxx>/unsub

For assistance:
Visit http://wyndham.chtah.com/a/<xxx>/assistance
or call 800-466-1589

Privacy Policy:
For more information about our privacy policy go to:
http://wyndham.chtah.com/a/<xxx>/privacy

This is a post only mailing from Wyndham Worldwide. Please do not
reply to this message.

(C)2011 Wyndham Worldwide, Co. All Rights Reserved.
22 Sylvan Way, Parsippany, NJ 07054