Making Millions Off Suing Spammers
If there is a way to make money, then there will also be someone out there to find a way to go after those making money, or a way to exploit it for themselves. That’s exactly what Daniel Balsam of DanHatesSpam.com is doing. Many years ago, Daniel was a marketer, but then after receiving so many spam emails, he had enough. Dan quit his career in marketing, then went to law school to take on his spamming arch enemies. His new job and profession would be to take on the spammers, and make a full time income out of it.
How much money has Daniel made in his new profession, in excess of $1 million in court judgments and lawsuits so far. The majority of these cases are settled out of court, as it would usually cost the company more in legal fees and court cases costs. While Dan may be making a decent amount of money, at the same time he’s building a nice long list of enemies and companies who are making moves to sue him back.
Who is Daniel suing and what for? Many of the names you will be familiar with… such as Adult Friend Finder, Tagged.com, Trancos, Inc. and even ValueClick. A judgement in November for $4,000 was awarded to Daniel, which was against Various Inc, the social media company that controls AdultFriendFinder.com.
You might be thinking, $4,000 doesn’t sound like a lot, but Daniel says he has more than 40 small claims victories and several more in higher courts. Most of these cases are based on the charge of “misleading through advertising”. Even more crazy is that Daniel has now won cases against Various Inc on four different occasions.
The list of companies Balsam is after goes on and on… and some companies are fighting back, saying Balsam has over 100 different emails which are trying to trap companies, and is being sued by ValueClick inc for allegedly breaking terms and agreements of their settlement.
No matter if you side with Dan or the companies which are counter suing him, it makes for an interesting story, but also lets you know that these types of spam lawsuits are going on and many are being won and settled out of court. You can read the full story at MyWayNews.
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I hope he takes on the scammers with all the different 419 spams. Those jerks need to be wiped off the face of the earth.
Wonder who will take on these spam cases in Minneapolis? I like this new attack on email spam. So, sick of my email boxes being jammed, daily with this garbage. I spend, at least 25 minutes per day, deleting and/or sending to phishing scam or forwarding to authorities. Taking up too much of my precious self-employed worktime.
@ Cassandra, you need to move your email account to Gmail; sure the spammers will still get through but they'll be sent right to 'SPAM' where they belong. The new Priority inbox further filters your mails and prominently displays those that you usually open.
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I wonder how many companies who are internet newbies were destroyed. Something tells me this guy goes after people simply to make money, not to stop any spam
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I agree that he is just out to make money. I don't think he sincerely cares about stopping spam. If he was, why would he settle all of these cases outside of court? He would obviously inflict more damage on the spammers if he actually took them to court.
It seems his settlements are too small to change the behavior. It has to cost so much getting sued for spamming that your ROI on spam decreases significantly. Why stop spamming when the profit you make from spam can without problem pay for the legal fees?
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Pushing paperwork in a law office is super cheap. Just hire a 30k a year paralegal and give them a template. This guy has a pretty nice business model.
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Great for him its about time the spammers get a little taste of their own medicine. I like him already and I do not even know him lol. Its the best of both worlds he is getting rich, and hopefully trimming a little of the spam in all of our inboxes. Way to go Daniel keep it up my man.
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Atleast somebody is doing something to fight companies who spam. Now we all know spamming can be taken to court, so the spammers can pay. Just hope this will not be abused to sue on legit companies with legit methods of email marketing.
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Sure they can be taken to court, but if they are any good at spamming, they could easily afford such lawsuits. I think there needs to be heavier government imposed fines too. For some crimes, police are allowed to confiscate anything gained from that illegal activity. They should be able to do the same for spammers and strip them of all of their possessions.
Sounds good, but does it not have to be illegal in some way or another to sue someone for spamming, its gotta be unethical but is that enough?
Interesting business model. Definitely thinking outside the box here. Daniel really has a limitless amount of companies to go after. Thanks for sharing Zac.
– Robert
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This is so crazy…I heard about another guy doing this to make money…it works.