For years now, all my email has been forwarded to a webmail account at SpamCop, a spam filtering service. While not a perfect solution, this drastically reduced the amount of spam I had to deal with, so I accepted it as a necessary evil.
But then SpamCop announced that they were discontinuing all their webmail accounts come September.
Since I had paid $30 for a year of service back in May, I was understandably upset. I had only received 1/3 of what I paid for. Under the terms I signed up with, I was entitled to a refund...
So I wrote to SpamCop Support and requested I get $20 of my payment returned.
Their reply? "I'm sorry but there are no refunds."
I've written back twice explaining that they shouldn't have promised refunds if there were no refunds, and I want my money back, but they've been ignoring me. None of my emails have been replied to.
Really?
Look, this is not about the $20.
This is entirely about living up to your promises... something that is increasingly rare now-a-days, and I'm just sick of it. Nobody seems to give a shit about living up to their word anymore. Integrity? Honesty? Ethics? Responsibility? Meh. Who cares? Yeah, I took your money with the promise of providing a service, but I don't feel like providing that service any more, so too bad! And no, I won't be giving you an explanation, And yes, I'm keeping your money.
Sorry!
My life would be so much easier if I could just abandon any sense of integrity, honesty, ethics, and responsibility. Sadly, I was raised better than that, so now I'm stuck in a world where possessing such qualities... and expecting such qualities in others... is a detriment.
To the tune of $20.
And my trust.
I'm holding a Twitter contest!
Prepare yourself to win a fabulous prize package worth nearly FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS!!!
That's right... none of this lame-ass "Win an iPhone" bullshit that's being Re-Tweeted every five minutes... I'm giving away FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS in prizes! Just look at the cool stuff you can win...
A GULFSTREAM G550 JET! ($45,000,000 value)
A PAIR OF 2009 FERRARI SCUDERIA F430s! ($600,000 value)
AN ALL-EXPENSES-PAID AROUND-THE-WORLD CRUISE! ($80,000 value)
FOUR MILLION DOLLARS IN GOLD! ($4,000,000 value)
TOTAL PRIZE VALUE: $49,680,000!!!
Here's all you have to do to enter...
And that's it! Best of luck to everybody who enters!*
Or not.
Because I am so fucking sick and tired by all this stupid contest crap that is taking over everybody's favorite social media distraction.
When you fire up Twitter, it asks you one question: "What are you doing?
And, in the beginning, that's what people used Twitter for... quick little updates to let people know what they were up to in-between blog posts. But, like all things, Twitter inevitably evolved. Soon people were using it to say "good morning," ask questions, get advice, post photos, say random shit, and much more. Then Twitter abuse started happening. People started broadcasting personal conversations (even though that's what Direct Messages and Email are for). People started posting when their blog is updated (even though that's what a webfeed is for). People started selling shit (even though that's what eBay is for). And people even started... God help us... Twittering all the songs they listen to with "blip.fm" (even though that's what Last.fm is for). Then came the abomination known as SpyMaster. And so-on and so-on. People rarely say what they're doing anymore.
But the worst was yet to come.
Now companies (and even individuals) are holding contests. Usually for an iPhone. These contests require you to "Re-Tweet" their blog URL or some other annoying spam-like shit that clogs up the service and flushes it even further down the crapper of uselessness than it already is. As more and more people hop on the Twitter contest bandwagon, it's only going to get worse. I anticipate that pretty soon I'll be longing for the "good ol' days" when people were just blip.fm-ing every frickin' song they're listening to instead of re-Tweeting every damn contest that pops up.
But whatever.
I suppose it's just par for the course. The web was ruined when assholes started adding pop-ups and other annoying crap. Email was ruined when assholes started sending spam and unsolicited crap. It was only a matter of time before the assholes ruined Twitter with their contest-spam crap.
Oh well. So long as companies can count on Twitter users whoring their shit for one-in-a-million prize-winning odds... it's the cheapest way to advertise, and probably ain't going away any time soon.
* Prizes do not include taxes, duties, fees, delivery, or any other supplemental costs.
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