WEVA Sells Your Email To Spammers!?!?!

[HankCastello]

Yes, it would certainly appear that WEVA - the "Wedding & Event Videographers Association" has found another revenue source - selling your email address to spammers!

WEVA is no stranger to accusations of money-grabbing, so perhaps this should not come as a big surprise.

Jean and I have recently noticed an abundance of spam with "SpeedDate" in the subject line, so I decided to tweak my SpamAssassin to eliminate it.  While studying the headers of those emails, I discovered a reference to WEVA.  See for yourself -

Received: from weva.directingcom.com ([66.90.70.92]:3079)
            by trajet.websitewelcome.com with esmtp (Exim 4.69)
            (envelope-from <info@directingcom.com>)
            id 1OXbve-0001b3-NX
            for ***@*******.com; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 10:25:24 -0500
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:25:15 -0400
From: "Jill Midst" <info@directingcom.com>
Subject: RE: Meet someone at SpeedDate
To: <***@******.com>
Message-ID: <3548bc589abc443439a8c6005c480605@weva.directingcom.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT)
X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 12.0
Accept-Language: en-us
Content-Language: en-us
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Spam-Status: No, score=4.0
X-Spam-Score: 40
X-Spam-Bar: ++++
X-Spam-Flag: NO

The only editing I've done to that, is to  asterisk out my email info.  I can't think of any reason for the spammer to add weva as a subdomain unless they are trying to track results by the source of the email addresses and quantify the value of their "leads", to help with future purchasing decisions for more email addresses.

Since I've never been a member, I suppose our email addresses came from their forums.

[HankCastello]

By the way, I could find no Privacy Statement on the WEVA site, though they do have one on their wwwebtek.com store site, which says, in part -

we DO NOT distributer it to others with the following exception: We share customer information as described below and with subsidiaries of weva.com controls that either are subject to this Privacy Notice or follow practices at least as protective as those described in this Privacy Notice.

Hmmm..., while they do not "distributer" your info, they do "share customer information...with subsidiaries.."

[HankCastello]

REQUEST -

If you also have spam from this SpeedDate outfit, please check the email headers and see if you also find a weva reference.  If so, please forward headers to me, or post here.

Let's not jump the gun - I suppose there could be some other explanation other than WEVA selling email addresses to spammers, but for the life of me, I haven't come up with one yet.

I have emailed WEVA (info@) for a response.  If received, we will either have them post directly, or I will copy/paste their full response here, so stay tuned!

[HankCastello]

Here's another one with not only weva in the headers but in the links (http changed to hxxp so we don't link to them) -

Why Choose Termfinder?

Termfinder.com is a Life Insurance Search Engine. It was founded to provide insurance consumers quick, easy access to their life insurance policy. Termfinder.com has proven that shopping for life insurance online can save time and money. Find out how today

hxxp://weva.directingcom.com/18_1_101081_33AE7113008293.htm

Or if you would like to speak with an expert, our licensed agents are waiting to answer any questions that you may have.

Unsubscribe: hxxp://weva.directingcom.com/18_2_101081_33AE7113008293.htm
or send mail to: P.O. Box 2654
Kirkland, WA 98083

Click this link to unsubscribe: hxxp://weva.directingcom.com/101081_33AE7113008293.htm

With spammers, as with sales in general, it is advantageous to track the source of your leads, and it appears that by including "WEVA" as a subdomain, this is what they are doing.

[BillGrant]

Oh Hank,
Aren't there videos out there to be made? I've been a member of WEVA for a year and I havn't seen the slightest increase in my spam. Let's get productive eh?
Bill

[HankCastello]

With 31 email accounts to handle, it is interesting that seemingly, only those addresses used for video are getting these 'weva' spams.

Do you not think this is of interest to other videographers as well as to WEVA members?  Don't WEVA members, especially, have the right to know - if not the right to decide - about this?

And I think everyone should be aware, before giving up their email address to WEVA, that they could possibly end up on more spammers' lists.

If you really care about WEVA, you may want to express your opinions to THEM on whether you think this is a good idea or not.

As for your "productive" reasoning - every post I've ever made here, and presumably those made by others and even yourself, have potentially taken time away from video work, yet you've never complained before with that argument.

[BillGrant]

Just making a comment. Seems like this one is a little randomish. I have no real affiliation or affinity for WEVA. We probably have bigger fish to fry is all I was trying to point out.
Bill

[HankCastello]

By all means, fry 'em!  I'll publish any article you like.  You can have author status right away, as can any other moderator on this site.  (Author status gives you access to the backend of this website).

Frankly, I am running out of ideas.  But I still think it is outrageous for WEVA to be selling mailing lists to spammes.

[HankCastello]

As promised, here is WEVA's response -

Dear Mr. Castello,
Thank you for your email alert. Please note, Wedding & Event Videographers Association International (WEVA International) does not sell or rent its database to any third parties. Upon checking with our database management facility earlier today we found no evidence of any sort of "hacking" of the database. The email you have received containing the letters "weva" shows no evidence of having been derived from the WEVA International database. You may wish to contact your ISP for further information regarding unauthorized emails you have been receiving. Thank you again for writing to us.

Sincerely,

Roy Chapman
Chairman
Wedding & Event Videographers Association International (WEVA) www.weva.com www.WEVAEXPO.com rc@weva.com
941-923-5334

Not that we expected an admission, and to be fair, Mr. Chapman could be unaware of what is happening.  I think the "weva" in the links and the fact that the emails (several) only went to videography-related email domains, does look suspicious, but any web/developer/database guy could have sold the addresses - even any server technician working on their hosting server.

As for them checking with  their "database management facility", I had to chuckle.  It doesn't take a "facility" to manage a database the size of WEVA's.  As a former database administrator for several corporations and even a large state's department of employment, I am quite aware of what it takes to handle databases.  So, just knowing that there was at least a touch of "BS" in his statement, does have me wondering..