spamming is a huge problem these days..Its unfortunate because they offer great promotion

Frank,

Thank you for the information.

I get really annoyed when they are not sent from the agents e-mail address.  It is a pain when they come from random IP addresses making it hard to filter.

Why don't you just opt out of their list?  Do they not provide you with a way to op out?  Sounds like the simple solution and then you won't receive anymore emails and won' have to worry about spending so much time boycotting them.

I agree with Frank. All you have to do is click a link at the bottom of the flyer and you will be taken off the list. I am a realtor and I enjoy getting these flyers. Sometimes they advertise a deal on a house that I would never even know about otherwise. I just simply delete the ones that have nothing relevant to what my clients are looking for in the subject line.

I too am a realtor and understood that they mainly go to realtors.  it is a way to stand above the rest.  events are happening at houses and i enjoy knowing about them.  it is a great way of getting your house sold.  sorry to those of you who don't want these.  but they are great for the rest of us who do.

Dear "Kimberly"

I have no problem with people like you that might want to receive these, and you sign up for their list. What I dont like is MLSflyers.com illegally acquiring names for a NON- opt in list (in other words, from people that did not ask for the spam).

I live in Virginia, You might live in Florida. I'll let you kow via email, each time I have a Virginia listings. Just in case!

I'm proud that the #2 result on Google.com for Flyers and MLSflyers.com is this blog!

Ha! Thank you for checking on these companies before hiring them!

Mr.Frank Llosa,  our attorney will soon get in touch with you for damages that you’re causing to our business by misleading our customers with false claims and comments.

Hello "Gloria Roman",

First of all who are you? You sent me this private email from a fake email address (actually the email never got to me, must have gone to my spam folder, but I did randomly see it when I logged into ActiveRain)

Name:    Gloria Roman
Email Address:    GloriaRoman@GloriaRoman.net
Subject:    Coming to you for damages
Message:    This is regarding your blog "MLSFLyers.com or Flyerus.com"

"they just bought a list from a spammer "

"email addresses are NOT OPT IN addresses"

"I don't get mad at the sender since they were probably TRICKED by MLSFlyers.com"

"So please boycott this service."

"MLSflyers.com illegally acquiring names for a NON- opt in list"

"I'm proud that the #2 result on Google.com for Flyers and MLSflyers.com is this blog!"

These are some of the flase claims and damaging comments you have made in your posts that is misleading our customers and hurting our business. We give you 24 hours to take the blog off the internet otherwise our attorney with teach you how to write blogs.
Appreciate your earliest cooperation.
Thank you.

Gloria Roman

Gloria,

What do you mean when you write "otherwise our attorney with teach you how to write blogs." 

Which company is yours? Do you own both spam companies? Go ahead, prove to me where I opted into your spam list? I would love to speak with your attorney. I will post all comments from your attorney on this public forum. 

I have the write to protest your companies practices, which in my opinion is spamming. I define spamming as unsolicited mass emails. You are spammers. 

Frank 

Thank you so much for standing up against companies that send out these annoying mass emails. Spam is filling my inbox and my filters can't stop enough of it.

One thing is for sure, these email flyers are very helpful and worth receiving even as spam. I receive them gracefully regardless they are solicited or not. I've closed few deals and made several thousands dollars this years just because I browse through each of these flyers and send out flyers about my listing to other realtors in the area. Otherwise tell me what other way can let you know about open houses in your neighborhood, commmision bonuses on a property, agent luncheon and other events in timely fashion?

MLSFlyers.com,  Alwayskeepintouch.com and EmailFlyerAds.com SUCK pretty bad. I've recently started to use Flyerus.com and they are very professional. I just love their system and overall service.

Frank who started this blog is a broker. What does he knows how tough is today's market and how handy these emails flyers are to spread the word affordably and quickly. 

USPS delivers bunch of junk in our mailbox every day that we spend time to sort out, no once complains about that. Atleast these flyers bring us information relevant to our business and pretty good deals to make money if your really learn to use them properly.

"Mike"

Please send me your email, I would be more than happy to forward you all my Realtor spam.

Also I would suggest working on you're grammar. 

Frank

(Yes I know you're is supposed to be your) 

Email flyers is the best marketing tool a Realtor has today. You either use it to your advantage or keep whining about it like Frank. Mike you're right....these brokers sits on there ass and do nothing or write stupid blogs like this one.

Sarah

Realtor email flyer is MONEY NOT SPAM you loser impatient fools. 

Dan 

Note that all comments made by people whose names aren't linkable, are basically anonymous. They are not to be trusted.

I won't delete them, but if you are a Realtor that found this page because they were considering using their service, those comments are what you call Blog Spam. You can also tell they are the same people by their language ability: ".these brokers sits" and "no once complains" and " if your really learn"

"Frank" 

We all understood what Mike is trying to convey. You do not have to be an "English Teacher" here.

I strongly support Mike’s comments. These electronic flyers are very helpful and affordable source of marketing.

Jeff  Martin

I hate these POS.  I've been trying to get them to remove my company from their lists for 3 years.  They hit my order processing servers and bother everyone in my whole company.  I've started calling each and every person who pays them to harrass my company.  Even the people who pay them can't get them to stop sending out email to me. 

Why are you guys going to India for your services?  There are plenty of legitmate, legally operating companies that do this sort of thing in the US.  And, you can actually get them on the phone, and they actually follow our laws!  Shame, shame, shame on everyone of you who pay these people money to break the law for you.

One other thing about flyerus.com you ought to know.  Here is the information for the person who registered this website:

Domain name: flyerus.com

Registrant:
Carole Johnson (TV2AW) carjohson@azinspirationsinc.com
W 254 Warren St
Houston, TX 77539
United States
Phone: +1 (281) 145-8965

The phone number is no good and there is no such address in Houston.  Please start using reputable companies to send your mass emails.  You are abusing your customers, and we are starting to fight back.

Rosemary,

Yes they are probably the same company. Spammers tend to change their domain names ever so slightly so that spam filters can't stop them.

Don't use email promotions unless you personally know everyone on the list. 

Whatever you all folks say but I've been using Flyerus.com for almost few months now and its working out great for me. I believe this whole internet marketing thing is doing much good then any bad.

"ok Jen Lee" can somebody who is an actual member vouch for these clowns? These anonymous postings with fake names are called Comment Spam!

How many flyers do people get daily? I am especially interested in knowing how many Frank gets.

None of you are too busy to delete an email. Frank you said that to someone else your self STOP CRYING get yourself a SECRETARY like I do and make$$$ .

Dear STOP CRYING,

You are probably an owner of one of these three spamming companies. I too would be upset if I owned a spamming company and found when I googled my company name, this truthful blog post came up.

So back to the "just delete it" grade school reaction to spamming.

First of all, when you get 24,000 emails in one week, the "just delete it" time adds up. 

But even a dozen messages, if they route to your cell phone and interrupt whatever you are doing, that takes time and time is money.

And then you have to buy spam filters. Again, they cost money (the free ones aren't good enough). And those filters are on your computer and don't filter messages sent directly to your cell phone. And when legitimate emails get routed into your spam folder,thus the loss of business, that causes problems.

I don't know how many times I've emailed somebody, just to find out they never got the email because it routed to their spam folders.

"Just delete it" is not the solution.

"Just don't spam" is the solution.

Frank 

p.s. A secretary? What, you don't get any of your emails? You have to hire somebody to filter through your emails? Again, you have to pay somebody $30,000 a year because you get spammed? Oh, that makes sense.

I think our industry is really becoming too re-actionary.  Most of the "spam" I receive is unsolicited but most of the time somewhat relevant.  Are we next going to try and stop spam snail mail, because that is more of a hinderance than the email....just deal!

Yet another fake posting. They call that comment spam.

When I get snail mail spam, it doesn't filter legitimate client into the snail mail spam folders

Is there a way to opt out of all the crap you Realtors send us!  As if I care if my neighbor just sold his house or if mortgage rates are still at an all time low!

1. You take up space in my mail box.

2. You take my time in sorting your info into the trash

3. You take up space in my garbage

4. And you are adding to the landfills

I hope you all get spammed out of existance.   

Hi Frank

It's amazing how you answered all the questions but from the one that says NON-AGENT "I hope you all get spammed out of existence for filling up my garbage"
SO there.....NO i do not own a flyer company and god knows why you receive 24K emails a week I receive about 3k a week 2k of which is real spam 1k of which are legitimate client emails or promotions all related to my business. Everyone's got to make money somehow... we agents go and knock on doors, we call expired listings, we send out brochures what you don't think people get enough calls nowadays from telemarketers or from marketing companies...... Imagine if all agents decided to send brochures to market themeselves (that's hypothetical and WONT" happen the same as not happening for every listing) get a life and think about the positives.... or get out of the business.

 PS: If you decide to answer to this post please first answer the Non-Agent so we can see why you as a company should have the right to market yourself to people who didn't ask for you to send them brochures, or phone calls and the flyers company shouldn't... then I will be all ears for your response to my post :-)

To Non-Agent.

I don't send paper mailings.

That was easy enough. 

How you justify buying a list from a spammer who cultivates them using spam spiders is beyond me.

Frank

whoo you've softened

Hey Frank.... that's a lot less of a powerful statement than you're previous ones.... you might not send them yourself but I'm sure the agents that work for you have some kind of a marketing plan in doing something.... I don't want to say told you so but I've got to say it "I told you so"

Sorry Stop Crying,

I don't follow your ramblings.

The point of this page is to let Realtors that are doing a background check on these companies, to know that they are spammers. Whether YOU like spamming or not, is not the point. The point is these companies are not telling the truth when they are trying to get business from Realtors. I think 80% of Realtors that buy these packages think that they are OPTIN.

Now they will know.

I've read through here and there are lots of strong feelings.  I've gotta say, whereas I respect your views I fully expect you respect mine.  I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR LISTINGS OUTSIDE OF THE MLS.  If you want to get my attention for your listing, do a good job of taking pictures and post lots of them with videos.  If you e-mail it to me (and most others) we're just going to delete it or spam you.  There are great spam control products out there that allows me to add senders to a spam listing.  Here's the thing a lot of these products will include my "spam list" in everyone else who subscribes.  So if I block you because you sent me realtor spam, that the others will not get it either.  This could hurt your business when you really need to send a legit e-mail.  Go to realtor.org and search for CANN SPAM Fieldguide.  Don't trust the vendor to do the CANN SPAM stuff for you.  That's just lazy and irresponsible.  

Well said!

Now we just need NVAR to implement a suggested protocol. Does FAAR have one?

This is getting to be an expanding problem.  Clicking on the "unsubscribe" function usually just gets you placed on a list of confirmed e-mail addresses.

 I work in a small town in Washington state, and routinely get flyers from Florida, California and Texas.  Some agent paid these people to annoy me and make it harder for me to use e-mail to connect with clients. 

I've tried blocking the addresses, but the spammers change them every few weeks to get around the blocks.  I've tried "unsubscribing", but what that seems to do is generate a flurry of spams for body part enlargers, porn and drugs.

 The folks saying that they appreciate these annoyances must either be newbies without enough to do, or are plants from the spammers.  For those of us trying to run businesses and take care of clients, these things do not have any benefit.

 I'm almost to the point of using Washington's anti-spam law (RCW 19.190 for anyone interested) to actually bring some of the agents to court.  I really hate the idea of suing a fellow agent, but the spammers have protected themselves by moving to places like India, and in any case, they claim that they are just "carriers", and that the agents are responsible.  Perhaps if a few agents get stuck with thousands of dollars in damages, word will get around and folks will stop paying these people to bother us.

Hey John,

But I thought all of the Spam laws had exceptions that allowed you to spam other businesspersons in the same association? 

Wow, this discussion has been going on for over a year! Way to keep it rolling! I do send electronic flyers out to agents and clients in my local community in Auburn, CA and surrounding areas. Those who receive them seem to be receptive, and those who don't opt out (they are sent through Top Producer which has an opt out feature.) Most of the responses I receive is from agents who want to know how I create the e-flyers, which I gladly share. The key for those of you who aren't familiar is to insert the flyer in the body of the email as you would a photo, in jpeg format. If you need more information on how to do that, let me know.

Noel,

The key is how do you get the email addresses? Do you buy them from spammers mentioned in this post or do you email your contact list? There is a big difference. 

Hi Frank,

They are forwarded to other local area KW offices through my office manager (we have an agreement with these offices) and to my personal database. I understand what you mean about the spam flyers...pretty ridiculous to get emails about opportunities in other states. We have enough inventory to worry about selling in our own areas!

Active Rain just asked me to remove part of my post. I did. I am saddened (is that a word) that they take money from spammers. EmailagentFlyers.com is an advertiser on Active Rain

1 Million emails? All Opt In? Get real. 

I have to agree with Matthew Rathbun and Frank.  If I want information on your listing I expect to find it in MLS, not on an emailed flyer.  I do not mind agents sending me notices about Broker's Opens, but I could care less about your Open Houses and your Bonuses.  The information should be in MLS.  As a consumer I have notified several Realtors in my area to take me off their lists, because I do what they do.  They have complied and been very gracious about it.  All in all, I would appreciate it if you would stop Spamming me to death.  I shouldn't have to hire an assistant to weed thru all of the crap.  I should be hiring an assistant to help me run my business.  I don't consider your Spam my business. 

FYI - I am a Realtor. I receive hindreds of these things each month. It can be annoying, but it is not SPAM. If you read the CAN SPAM ACT, the email addresses do not need to be opt-in as they are not personal email. They are purchased from a company that collects the information from local Realtor associations. Once an email address is used to register you as an agent, the email address is a business address and most are public information (through the associations).

Also, if the address is published on your real estate Web site, it is no longer considered personal.

I am not saying this is something that is dones with integrity (by the companies that actually send the email), but many confuse business related email, where the address was published/used as a business contact, as SPAM.

A link to the CAN SPAM ACT is http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.shtm. If the email has come from a company that does have a fake physical address, you can find a way to report them there as well.

"Rob"

Oh how I love "Realtors" that don't have the balls to put their own name here.

Dear EmailAgentFlyers.com,

You are full of it.

I talk DIRECTLY to these associations. They do not sell email addresses.

ANd I still call it SPAM. It might not be "CAN SPAM" as defined by whomever, but for me, getting as you said "hindreds" of emails each month, it is spam and it needs to stop.

And yes, CAN SPAM needs to grow up and change.

I just added MountainBytes.com to the spam list.

Hey Frank,

I'ld like to know if your passion for this subject can somehow be turned arround to something more positive.  The Andy Griffith show was one of my favorites as a child and I can still visualize Barney Fife fighting "fire with fire".  We all know Andy was the smart one - right?

Yes it would be out of this world to assume that a flyer you recieve from across the nation would suddenly find itself in your hands and be a perfect match for one of your clients or personal friends.  But what if you did this - what if you opted-in to flyers from Counties where most of your population relocates too?  (NAR has these statistics) What if you asked permission from the sender of a flyer  for you to forward it to your customer base (with their logo and your contact info in large bold letters) with verbage like:

Attached is a brochure I received from a fellow Realtor® from Charlotte.  When you get a chance please use your networking power to forward it to your sphere of influence.  As Mr. Karinthy would surmise - you are less than six degrees of separation from the right buyer for this opportunity.

As you know I network with Realtors® from coast to coast for consideration on buyer and seller referrals.  Be sure to let me know of anyone who is relocating; I will make sure they are serviced by a licensed professional Realtor® in their choice of communities.

It will not get any farther than that because there is no further motivation for your contacts to push it forward.  But you have put your name in front of them and opened yourself up to an opportunity for a referral for anyone across the nation.  How often do you remind your clients that your success is not based on comissions - it is based on referrals.

You don't have to forward everything but you have turned a pet peeve into an opportunity.

As for the bulk of the problem and non-flyer e-mail - most of those do have the choice of opting-out.  Although I have heard that "opting-out"makes it worse because now you have validated your e-mail.  I have never opted-out (just auto filter and bulk delete) and yet I have seen a very sharp decline in the past six months - especially e-flyers.

If that is a sign of the times than I look forward to getting more very soon.

For the record, I am the postmaster for one of the largest real estate companies in N America. Frank and I have spoken at times in the past regarding a number of our agents who took it upon themselves to use similar aggressive marketing techniques. My company does not accept mail from mlsflyers.com or their affiliates precisely for the reasons Frank has claimed: Use of non-confirmed recipient lists.

For anyone who is claiming "this is not Spam", let me set the record straight: If it's

1.) Sent in bulk (i.e., nearly identical content broadcast to multiple recipients)

and

2.) Unsolicitied (i.e., you never at any point confirmed an opt-in subscription request from the sender)

it is SPAM. There is no gray area whatsoever. It does not matter how well targeted the recipients list are ("they only go to realtors") or whether there are opt-out links and other requirements by federal and state laws. "Is this spam?" is a question of consent, not content. If you didn't ask for it, it is spam.

In my experience, these "spam every realtor in your zip code" services are by and large purchasing contact information from your local realtor boards, local MLS, etc. NAR does not resell this info to the best of my knowledge.

Hey Ben! That was great!

Spammers try to distinguish between "legal spam" and "illegal spam." They claim that since we are in an associated business, it is not spam. But that is where they are wrong in my opinion. It is SPAM, but perhaps legal spam. There is nothing that says I need to like legal spam, and I won't give the same level of harassment to those that legally spam me (ie calling them to let them know my annoyance)

As for local boards selling the information, I think that might hae been the case 4 or 5 years ago, but not recently. I have been changing my email address twice a year to "SoldByAssociation@ xyc.com" and these spammers have not been using that address

Thanks again

I have talked to the San Diego Association of Realtors on several occasions about their members' email addresses (I am a long time member too) and asked five different ways to one if they sell the list. They do not. But there is a woman in San Marcos (north San Diego County) who is a contact of my title rep at Chicago Title. This woman does these wonderful HTML flyers out of her house and then emails them to every agent in the county for you! For like $20 but that's not the point...where does she get the list? I think from SDAR somehow but am not sure. It's a mind bender.  Where the list comes from is the point. Of course she won't say and Chicago Title doesn't have every agent's email in town. We have 19,200+/- agents in San Diego County.  Since she's also a busy mom, it takes her two weeks to do one flyer.  Oh my!  She sends it to look like it's from you and the returns come directly to your box and people can hit reply and it goes to you. Freaking cool but mysterious.

But as to the main topic, I actually like getting the flyers a whole lot because it tells me who the great agents are. They're willing to go above and beyond the MLS and actually spend money (horrors!) to get you to possibly maybe go to their property.  All the services have easy opt out buttons. All told, I get about 15 a week.

If I could buy the list, believe me I would.  Who wouldn't want the email address of every colleague in town?

I use EmailFlyerAds.com and like it pretty well.