Using Google I proceeded to find a reputable company to find email lists so we could attract investors. ConsumerBase was at the top of that list and was spending money using Google Adwords to attract customers which said good things. I contacted them and received a call from a salesman Ed Wagner who did a great pitch. Ed Wagner informed me during the initial sales phase that "these records are Double Opt-In Email Addresses" (pulled directly from his email to me) and "ConsumerBase has been in business for over a decade. I have been in Marketing and Advertising for over two decades. I am not here just to sell you "a list." I am here to help you facilitate a successful marketing campaign with pinpoint data-period. I am at your disposal." Ed Wagner mentioned that these lists were culled January & July and as we were close to June that there may be as high as 10% bounceback/rejection rate. A little high but we are buying email addresses that are "double opt in" so it is a worthy risk.

They took our money quickly and responded 5-7 days later with the list we purchased. I bought it hook line and sinker...sinker being the operative word.

At this point I was feeling quite good and was looking forward to sending out our newsletter to these "double opt in email addresses". We purchased a list messenger program that allowed the receivers to opt-out/unsubscribe by clicking a link at the bottom of the email. So even if they really were double opt in, we still wanted to comply legally and give them a way out.

And now comes the headache...so the email's all go out from our server in batches of 45 with a 60 second delay in between as we didn't want to flood the email server or make it look like we were sending mass spam. Most email servers can sent up to 200 emails at one time but we wanted to make double sure everything was totally clean.

When all of the email addresses had been send the message the rejection results were staggering. Having removed all “out of office” bounce backs so these #’s are 100% rejection from the server level. I will take this opportunity to remind the reader that Ed Wagner suggested a 10% bounceback/rejection rate. These are the actual rejection rates based on numbers sent out.

Business Broker List – 558 out of 2186 = 25.5%
Merger & Acquisition List – 260 out of 1091 = 23%
Business Investment List – 289 out of 1105 = 26%

All of these are extremely higher than their projections or explanations. ConsumerBase (Ed Wagner) responded that these were indeed higher than projected bouncebacks/rejections and that we (Abacus Financial) could request another list that would be sent FREE to makeup for these higher results. After sending ConsumerBase (Ed Wagner) several emails I finally had to send his associate Kate Feeley an email explaining these concerns. She responded that "I have given this information to our VP of Sales and our Director of Operations" who has not gotten back to me.

I was informed at this point that bounceback/rejection rates are based on them sending our emails out (giving control over to them for messaging) and that if we used our own servers than they could not guarantee any bounceback/rejection rate. Naturally I was told this only AFTER the whole thing occurred. Even in their 7 point Terms of Service on the order form does this little bit get left out. Of course they make a specific point #1 that they don't offer refunds.

I hope the vast majority of people that read this realize how annoying, frustrating and above all time wasting all of this is and how genuinely (grrrrr) one has to be to write these kind of reports. It isn't just about the money or the time or the energy but about feeling betrayed and just another sale. I fully expected there to be some issues with this and I wasn't shocked there were bouncebacks or rejections. I wasn't shocked when people used the unsubscribe function we had installed on our mail program, when people sent us emails saying "REMOVE" and when we didn't get a huge response to our email blitz. I am however completely shocked at how run over I feel when dealing with ConsumerBase (Ed Wagner); enough to write this for others to read before they purchase.