Question:

Let’s see….  A FREE service that gives FREE coupons to ALL golfers with VERY LIMITED advertising, on a site that benefits golfers tremendously. Yeah, pure spam….  Try it before you fry it, pal.

Well I tried it, and I consider it a pretty poor web site that has far too much defective code and about the lamest content imaginable..  In the state of Texas it has two discount offers, both for a free bucket of balls.  I won’t drive two miles for a free bucket of balls. As you can very well see I posted my true return email address, not some *fictional* hotmail account like most spammers.

Well as the claimed CTO for that web site Chris, you are rather unskilled when it comes to simple email as your "please tell what you like Rick" message in response to me signing onto your site came to my disposable hotmail account in 2 point type… – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Please feel free to tell me about how much our site sucks.  Then be sure to tell all your friends who love to pay full price instead of half price.  I’m sure they’ll enjoy your great wealth of knowledge…..

Response:

I give an Email address, you just couldnt figure it out.

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Zamuel, Thanks for the reply – at least you had the nerve to give a return email address so I could address my comments to you directly rather than breed it futher on the newsgroup.

Response:

SPAM…coupons are for morons. Golf costs what it costs. I’ve gotten lots of good deals on rounds without coupons, etc, just simple planning and basic conversation. You want to sell? I don’t want to buy. I don’t want to buy anything from you or anyone interested in directing any marketing at me through you, period, regardless. I am like most people, I have a cultually conditioned knee jerk negative response to any and all marketing directed my way. I’m pretty saavy about it too, like everyone else, I’ve seen this type of marketing before, and as I said many many times before; take my name off your list…CLICK!!!!! Rob

Response:

Hello fellow list members, Chris Floyd here from GolfnSave.com (www.GolfnSave.com).  On March 24, 2000 we launched our new web site that gives golfers free access to hundreds of discount coupons at golf courses and driving ranges throughout the United States.  Two-for-one, Four-for-three, free stuff, etc.  No cost to the golfer or the facilitiy to use our site. We launched in March with golf facilities in 37 states and Canada.  Most of them are in California and Nevada since that’s where we are, but we’re signing deals with several management companies now and will add more than 400 courses to our site in May.  Major expansion coming to several new areas in the U.S. later this year. If you view the site and have any comments please thread this message or comments from our users to see where we can improve the site to make it more user-friendly before we launch a national ad campaign in the Fall of 2000. Hope we can save all of you LOTS of money!  If you like the site be sure to spread the word to other golfers! See you on the links! – - – Christopher Floyd Vice President, CTO GolfnSave.com

Response:

Hello spammer.

Hello fellow list members,

<spam snipped

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<clip We run the site GRATIS from our servers.  We foot the bill personally….

<clip You’ll excuse us for being somewhat cynical, but is this truly altruistic? You’re advertising several job openings for golfinsave.com.  It’s hard to believe that you have formed a corporation, and are planning to hire employees with no chance of recouping your investment.  That makes you a for-profit organization.  Even though those who register with you aren’t paying, you will profit from this website because of them.  If you carry this to its inevitable ending, it is still spam.  There has to be recompense somewhere.  Actually its more insidious than the blatant advertising we get.  At least they’re up front with it. You may be footing the bill now, but certainly you’re looking for a return, and it shouldn’t come from spamming this newsgroup.. "Someone likes every shot" bk

Response:

Zamuel, Thanks for the reply – at least you had the nerve to give a return email address so I could address my comments to you directly rather than breed it futher on the newsgroup. Now then, what I would have graciously told Mike is that our site is NOT a commercial site.  It was started by two golfers who were sick and tired of paying full price for golf.  Sure, we could buy $30 coupons books but that would defeat the purpose of trying to save money on golf.  "Why not find a way to give discount coupons to golfers for free?", we thought….  hence GolfnSave was born. We run the site GRATIS from our servers.  We foot the bill personally…. Think of it not as shareware, but as freeware.  Golfers can use the site any way they want to. If they dont want the discounts we offer they can surely find other ways of locating discount offers, or they can pay full price for what our users will only pay half price for. So, my apologies for the sharply worded reply to Mike’s flame, but unlike other companies that try to sell their wares on the net we want to save golfers some money on the stuff they pay the most for anyway, green fees. I’d have told Mike that directly but he failed to include his email address for obvious reasons.  As for my post regarding our site, I suppose it would have been better to post a question to the list rather than announce our site in the method I did. When you wrote, " I’m quite sure that ANY offers you might publish on your site are WELL advertised in their local areas."  I must agree that you are half right. I’m sure many of the facilites we list also pay to advertise similar discounts in their local newspapers.  However, how do you, the golfer, find these discount offers for courses outside the coverage area of your local paper?  I guess you could BUY a discount book, but why?  We’ll list them for the courses for free, and give you free access to them. You dont see too many people yelling at Microsoft for offering their free HotMail service to the thousands of users who subscribe to it rather than pay an ISP for the same POP3/SMTP mail services.  Why should you pay full price at a golf course simply because you dont live in the local area that the golf course publishes its ad in every week?  If the foursome in front of you in line at the pro shop has a coupon, are you less important because you didn’t find their coupon in the local paper?  Why should you pay full price? As for your comment that "[sic] You really serve no usefull purpose, other than to promote someone elses money into your own pocket…".  We’ll, I’m not sure whose money you’re talking about.  Our service is free to the golfers/users.  It’s also free to the courses and golf facilities to list their specials and promotions.  We don’t sell any products or services to our visitors so we generate no revenue from sales of any kind.  We give free spots to selected golf partners (Avis, 1-800-hotels.com, and GolfDiscount.com) because they all offer discounts to traveling golfers. So, if by not charging the users, and by having saved the golfers who have used our site thousands of dollars since we launched in March, you think we’re taking someone’s money, I’d love to know where the money’s coming from because it’s not in my bank account! Ours is a simple concept. Give golfers free acess to all the free and discount offers we can contract for with courses.  No one pays a thing. Again, as for the *SPAM*, take it on its face for what it is.  If you think it’s a commercial exploitation of our site because we’re trying to hock something for a price, then you’re incorrect.  On the other hand, if you ever decide to play golf in an area that you are traveling to and you need to find a way to locate a course that will give you a two-for-one discount I hope we can save you some cash without having you think we’re trying to sell you something…. As for your feeling that "GolfnSave just went on a WHOLE LOT of shitlists, thanks to you!", I can only say that I obviously prefer good press over bad. I’m not used to such harsh criticism from golfers for trying to save them money.  If the worst thing golfers can say about our site someday is that we told people how to find us on the golf newsgroup and then got flamed for it, then I guess I’ll take the heat for that one (pardon the pun…). Again, my sincere apologies for posting my note to your newsgroup.  Please pass along this message to anyone from the group you feel would benefit from my apology. Best regards, CHRIS FLOYD, V.P./CTO GolfnSave.com

Response:

Let’s see….  A FREE service that gives FREE coupons to ALL golfers with VERY LIMITED advertising, on a site that benefits golfers tremendously. Yeah, pure spam….  Try it before you fry it, pal.

Yep…commercial exploitation of the newsgroup is SPAM… Mike is not the only one of us around here who dosn’t allow it to breed in our newsgroup…so packyours up and be on your way with it or start preparing to explain to your ISP…WHY you deliberately chose to violate the usenet charter. As you can very well see I posted my true return email address, not some *fictional* hotmail account like most spammers.

That’s nice…the experts who track down the anonymous spammers won’t have to bother about you…thanks! Please feel free to tell me about how much our site sucks.  Then be sure to tell all your friends who love to pay full price instead of half price.  I’m sure they’ll enjoy your great wealth of knowledge…..

I’m quite sure that ANY offers you might publish on your site are WELL advertised in their local areas…You really serve no usefull purpose, other than to promote someone elses money into your own pocket…If you want to "SERVE THE PUBLIC" drop all your advertising  and stop spamming us. GolfnSave just went on a WHOLE LOT of shitlists, thanks to you. What an accomplishment! ]]]Z[[[

Response:

Thanks for the great FLAME, Mike. Obviously you have no prblem paying full price at your favorite golf courses.  As for the rest of the world, some of us would rather not get REAMED by local courses.  You must be from an area outside California that only charges a few bucks to play great courses, instead of the $80 it costs most of us in the Silicon Valley to play our little pitch-and-putts…. Let’s see….  A FREE service that gives FREE coupons to ALL golfers with VERY LIMITED advertising, on a site that benefits golfers tremendously. Yeah, pure spam….  Try it before you fry it, pal. As you can very well see I posted my true return email address, not some *fictional* hotmail account like most spammers. Please feel free to tell me about how much our site sucks.  Then be sure to tell all your friends who love to pay full price instead of half price.  I’m sure they’ll enjoy your great wealth of knowledge….. Chris Floyd, V.P./CTO GolfnSave.com

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hello spammer. Hello fellow list members, <spam snipped

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