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| Spamming, the practice of sending unsolicited advertisements and other messages by e-mail, is on the rise. But the share of mortgage spam has tumbled.
Ipswitch Inc. announced the results of its fifth quarterly Spamometer survey. The latest installment revealed an overall rise in spam — reportedly representing more than two-thirds of all e-mail tracked in its survey. Mortgage and loan spam comprised a mere nine percent of that total, down from last quarter’s 18 percent, the Internet solution and software firm said. While mortgage spam placed fifth in the survey, electronic/pirated software e-mails, pornographic spam and finance/phishing spam respectively ranked fourth, third and second, Ipswitch reported. Claiming the top spot was medication spam, up two spots from last quarter, and responsible for 37 percent of the spam tracked in the survey, according to the Lexington, Mass.-based firm. “While it is disappointing to see the percentage of e-mails that are spam continually on the rise, it is the recent epidemic of phishing e-mails that are of most concern,” Ipswitch sales director for Northern Europe, Chris Greaves, said in a recent announcement. “Phishing is a special kind of spam designed to steal personal or corporate information. While regular spam irritates, phishing is dangerous. “Until spamming becomes uneconomical, spammers will continue to use time and ingenuity to trick filters into letting their messages through, knowing someone will fall for their sales pitch,” warned Greaves. Perhaps the decline in mortgage spam could be attributed to legal action taken to dissuade mortgage brokers and/or lead generators from using unscrupulous advertising tactics. The Federal Trade Commission’s efforts to enforce the CAN-SPAM Act last year included a lawsuit it filed collaboratively with the California Attorney General seeking to halt a Temple City-based operation, run under the corporate names of Optin Global Inc. and Vision Media Limited Corp., from sending millions of illegal, spam e-mails touting mortgage loans. And in another case, the Texas Attorney General filed a federal lawsuit against two alleged spammers that used more than 250 assumed business names to offer mortgage refis and other financial deals to e-mail recipients. Leads collected were sold for $28; the pair reportedly operated the fourth largest illegal spam operation in the world. |
Paula Parisot is a MortgageDaily.com feature reporter and a blogger at CloserBlog.com who has also worked in the mortgage industry.
e-mail Paula at: [email protected]
