I have become increasingly rude as they don’t seem to get the message. I went from listening politely then explaining why I didn’t want it, to interupting them halfway through the pitch and saying no thanks to now just putting the phone down immediately without speaking.

I don’t like doing it but it seems the only way.

BTW, I have learnt a few simple shut-down lines:
“We’ve just moved into a new house” kills all home improvement calls
“I work for BT/AT&T and get free phone line/calls/mobile” ends all phone company sales

I don’t mind a pleasant kind low pressure “pitch” – “like check this out, you’ve written about something similar, wanta free trial?” But persistent annoyances get ignored – quickly!

The “Get Paid to Read Email” AdSense ad at the end of the post is just weird and funny :-)

I don’t know, it must have been the mentioning of “paid to surf” programs, but it seems that AS doesn’t always get it the way it was meant to be read.

Nice post, BTW!

Nice post!!

The thing is, he doesn’t want to be part of the ‘sphere, or doesn’t get it. It’s about making a quick buck, and yes, I understand it too. Who doesn’t want automated slaves working for you to make you money?

But the part of me that loves writing and sees blogging as a great bridging tool can’t do it. I think the human touch about blogging is it’s core and it’s what makes it work. It is about connection and conversation, and no way a bot is ever going to do that.

People like this are a drain. On one of my websites which receives 8,000 – 9,000 visitors per day I can be guranteed to get at least one or two of these timewasters .I used to go to bed absolutely wound up but now I have learnt to ignore them and spend time creating value for others. Think about it – the hour you wasted with that dude could have been spent more productively.

Actually if someone sends me a link to something in a quick non spammy way that puts no pressure on to link up then I’m quite open to checking them out.

I get a lot of ‘hey check out this link’ emails and I look at all of them (unless they are obviously spam) and link up to about 20% (guess) – the ones that I think are relevant to my niche (quite often in my speedlinking posts).

So feel free to submit them if you find something you think is relevant.

The only other thing I’ll say on this is that sometimes I get the story from multiple people (as well as finding it myself) and so giving credit can be tricky – I generally give it to the first person to let me know about it.

With such a succesful blog like this one, it is normal (I guess) to be approached by people that only want but don’t give anything.

I sometimes find cool things on the net and I think “oh, problogger readers would benefit from this one.” But I don’t send them to you, ’cause I’m afraid you may think I just want “link attention” or I’m spaming. That stops me from commenting often. There are probably others in the same situation, dunno.

You could probably set an “anonynous tips center” or, as Victor said, you could hire someone to filter your inbox or so.

He’s probably trying to work you down until youjust give in (don’t think you will though).

Remember, Darren, that you cannot change people – you can only hope to educate them and you did your best. Hope your day gets better :)

P.S. As you may have already guessed from the previous comments, you’re not alone. I’ve received contact form spam (people literally copy/paste their offer into my contact form without any thought) for nearly a year and it still hasn’t ceased.

Everyone, no matter where, will always try and get ahead for little cost. It’s part of life. Don’t let it deter you from doing what you do best to get ahead.

People’s supportive comments, and the incoming affiliate checks are always a welcome relief.

I can’t believe people would waste their time going to sites they don’t care about just to get people that couldn’t give a rip, to come to their site.

Go figure…

As someone said above, I don’t understand why you spend so much time talking to them. You’re wasting your energy on something you don’t want to do. Take back your energy and learn to say ‘no’. :-)

Also, it helps that I list a onebox.com 800 number on all of my domain names. People can call it but it goes straight to voicemail, and the voice messages are delivered by email so I can hear them and delete them – they don’t get a response unless I’m interested.

I know the feeling, though… having dealt with about 100 trackback spams, 10 forum spams, and a few nasty comments this morning. Somehow it’s all worth it, I’m sure…