Thank you - this rant is well deserved, maybe "they" will listen to a rain god!  I'm about to turn my auto notiication off, if "they" don't!

ATTN NU NU Heads:  Please blog your listing instead of referring it to me!

Feel better? :)  There are always going to be people who want to game something.

AMEN.  I chuckle on the ones that are going to have 100 leads per day for the 'right' individual to handle!!!  LOVE IT!!!

Thank goodness, Rich!  I was beginning to think that I didn't understand the process correctly.  I'm tired of getting that spam.  Thank you for addressing this. 

AMEN! I stopped going there because I have not seen anything viable, at least in my area.

I hope they listen to you !!! That's is frustrating :)

I guess some still have not caught on to what a referral is. A blog like this was posted a few weeks ago.

Thanks for posting.  Awhile back, I hate to admit, I was a guilty party .... only once.  I swear.  I just didn't understand it. 

I'm a slightly older newbie now and know better.  I am glad you put that out for others before they make the same mistake I did.  Thanks!

I was guilty once.... and well, I was told nicely once... Thanks for standing up and telling everyone once!

Best,

Scott 

Thank you Rich! It is definitely aggravating to get the notification only to find an "ad" for an agent in my own city. Well said and a rant that is well justified in my opinion

Good.  Let's start using the tools here properly.

I have never used it for that reason.  Any way AR can turn it off to the system abusers?

Rich - Like the point deducting system suggested!  Reminds me of all the folks who post on Trulia "I can help you find a home!"

Thank you, thank you, thank you!  What a pain to go check and find it's not real. 

Is there a way to clean out the "referrals" that aren't referrals on the system?

Cindy - I'm working on that right now.

For the rest of you, if you receive any notifications through the Referral Exchange, and it turns out to be one of these 'Dumpers,' would please kindly request for them to remove their 'referral' from the system? Thanks!

Rich: How timely is this??? In the last 24 hrs,  I have recieved 6 phonecalls--on my cell phone---from a cheerful sounding voice saying: Hello, my name is ----- and I am from ------ and would like to know if you are interesed in building a referral business?" One said she works with 100 leads a day!I just hang up and have not engaged in a coversation. It sounds like a new kind of scheme to get referral business??? In this market??? Maybe the same people are doing the same thing here on AR?

Thank you Rich!

I have stopped even looking at the referral exchange exactly for that reason too.

Great a referral for my area, oh wait, someone looking for business. Aren't we all?

Oh boy another one, oh wait, someone has a house for sale. There a few of those around.

Ok, sorry, had to get those out of my system. ^_^

Rich:  I am with you all the way!  I think this is one rant that is well deserved.  I guess people who knowingly break the rules and try to game it to their advantage are the ones that I put in the "stupid" category and I usually wind up shaking my head and saying, "can't fix stupid".  I hardly ever even look at the referral site anymore and even that is a shame because the true intent of that site is a wonderful concept.

OMG!!!!  THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU - I almost wrote this very same post this AM after flagging at least 4 "referrals" as SPAM - This is so irritating!  It is such a great resource and so badly abused!  Thanks, Rich!

Thank you Rich well said, and to the point.  Have a wonderful day!

Can't Active Rain just delete the offenders? There are some people over there posting over and over and over and they have nothing to refer. If someone does not have an actual referral to make it would be good if the system , or an A/R god just deleted them. Our 2 cents.

Like Bob said - can't you just delte the offenders?  Like anyone has time to do that! What about a flagging system inside the group?  if a post is flagged as spam x number of times - the post is deleted, or maybe thrown into draft mode.  If it happens x number of times - the account is temporarily suspended?

I'm another one who stopped visiting the referral section as it wasn't at all effective.

Rich, thanks for your rant.  I do not like unsolicited advertisement via AR.  I will help as much as I can when someone asks.  And if you haven't read Ardell's How I "USE" ActiveRain To Find An Agent post, I would recommend you do.  I use her strategy for all AR queries. AJ

Thank you, Rich!

I was thinking about posting on this very subject today after getting about 5 alerts in the past two days which were no more than soliciations for referral business.  Not only irks me to be bothered with these non-referral referral postings, but to think that such agents are positioning themselves at the front of the line when many of us have been blogging and following correct protocol here religiously.  I really love the ones from folks that have about 500 points.  Way to shortcut the line without actually contributing something here.

From your perspective Rich, being on the inside and having to put up with all this crap, I am sure you wonder why adults just can't or don't get it. In play school, the one who brought the ball usually just wants to share. One of the bully's decides he can control the ball and then everyone else has no choice but to just go home, disappointed. The next day another ball comes into play and more bully's show up to take over. One wonders why some people just can't grow up. Maybe they need to get their own ball, their own players and their own place to do that, somewhere else. Perhaps just suggesting strongly that they leave might work.

Bless your little heart, Rich. (((hugs)))

Its about time someone from Active Rain lays down the law! I would be seriously surprised if these perpretrators actually get business with their pointless self-selling dumpings. I stopped visiting this link on active rain becuase of such behavior. Keep up the good work Rich.

Eddy 

Rich, thanks for saying what the rest of us want to say but can't!

Thank you so much!!!  Here I am a newbie in Acticve Rain, get a notification and am thrilled!! only to find out that my so called referral was "SPAM".  Very frustrating

                                                                            Jenny  :)

Rich, I've read through many, but not all of the responses, and i gotta say, Active Rain is the first place I look for agents in other parts of the world if I have clients buying or selling near them.  But it would never occur to me to use the actual system that's been set up.  It would help if the breakdown was first, geographical and second, date - followed by the other information on price, etc.  I've gotten some wonderful referrals from blogging, but I think they're going from one blog buddy to another rather than the referral pages in the sytem.  You sure are right about the networking thing!

I won't even post referrals there either.  I screen everyone and make personal contacts before I give a referral.

Thank you, Rich!  Hopefully the offenders are reading this. 

Hey Rich...  It seems so simple to me, there will always be those folks who don't follow the rules.

Thank you for that post.  I get enough solicitation in my inbox, I don't need it here.

I gave up trying to use it a while ago... now I just search for someone in the clients destination the old fashioned way.

Good use of the soapbox, Rich. 

Rich- I don't even go there anymore because of the bogus referrals there. I get all my referrals and give all mine direct to AR members. 

I hate it when people dump their "waste" on that page. There are other more effective ways to get your name out there. Be creative people, not destructive. 

Rich, thanks for the post

Couldn't agree with you more.  Unfortunatley the people who post those  are not active &  will prob. never come across this post

I tried to use the referral feature, but I was bombarded with too much junk.  I'm very focused on what I do and I don't want to change horses in midstream.  When I'm looking for a referral agents, I don't want to talk with agents not in the area, lenders I don't know, etc.. 

I no longer use the referral feature.  I just go to blogs for the area in which I'm looking for an agent.

I had great hopes for the referral feature.  I was disappointed by folks who are just referral spammers.

Thank you Rich, I have been waiting for this....as so many people just put junk in there...as Lenn says it ruins it for everyone.  Hope people get the message "this" time :)

It seems to have improved a little over the last few months, hopefully this message and some proactive action from the AR Team will continue that progress. Our team still prefers to place referrals directly, but has received a couple of good contacts through the system.

Thank you Rich!  You can rant any time....!!  I was thinking the same thing.....

Rich: Referrals are a GREAT thing. I agree 100% Don't self promote on the referral site as the true referrals may not be found

Rich- I see some of the ads have been removed. That is good. I reported a lot of spam, but never saw any of them removed for the longest time. So I stopped looking. Good to see movement.

Rich you brought up a great topic for the AR gurus to look more into.  I too am displeased with all the non-sense spam that advertises just the same as spam in my e-mail, when I look for referral exchanges I am not looking for spam.  I try to flag the ads but they just seem to still stay and hopefully the AR team will look into this matter further.  Great post.

Thanks, Rich, it is a disappointment when it turns out to be spam.

Hi Rich, I just joined a little over a week ago and my first day I got one of these dumped into my inbox.  I must admit, I was a bit perplexed.  I decided at that moment to just refer to my relocation network, and not focus on it here as much.

Thanks for the post, today has lots of solicitations for referrals in my area, not giving them out. Sometimes I wonder if this is a necessary posting category, wouldn't you just browse the agents in the given area and contact them personally?

I'm a little unclear as to what you are trying to say with this post...

;) 

Hi Rich - Amen to this post!!!  Your rant deserves to be read and featured, and it's long overdue, in my opinion.  I used to go there to check out things for my area, but quickly became totally disillusioned with the junk that kept being posted there.

Those who need to pay heed will not see this post, unfortunately.  So, those of you at AR are going to have to really stomp down on those abusing things like the referral exchange.  Please do stomp down, and do it hard, too!

Ann

I take it you're a little angry over this. I get a little frustrated when posts are added to the individual groups and the content has nothing to do with the group topic! I wasn't aware of the referral exchange, I have to check it out, thanks for the post.

Rich.....thanks for providing a refresher course on self promoting.  Amen.

Hey Rich. That was a much needed rant. I'm sorry to say, but you will most likey need to do it again, and again, and again......

Wow!  No more coffee for you!  In all seriousness - I agree.  It is a big bummer when you think you have a referral only to find out it is "spam"!

Is it time for a rant about the Q+A on localism now too? It seems like it is in worse shape than the referrals...

I had a good referral for Westchester NY yesterday.  I did NOT go to the referral exhcnage.  I went directly to a top ranked agent in Westchester NY, Miriam Bernstein.

I did not get 20 e-mails from folks in Brooklyn, Long Island, Manhattan, etc.  Nor did I get 10 phone calls from lenders seeking to finance the buyer.  Nor did I get 15 e-mails from agents in Ill., CA, TX, looking for future referrals. 

Rich - I would love to take advantage of this feature, but it is outside my comfort zone regarding how to actually put myself out there. I can only hope those that I network with know that I would welcome any referrals.

Rich, thanks for trying!  The type of people who treat online communities the way dogs treat fire hydrants aren't likely to read your post.  They just stopped by to staple their flyer to your pole.  How about a 4,000 point threshold to post to that forum?  I bet that would be relatively easy for ActiveRain's programmers to implement and it would reduce the likelihood of "click by" spamming.  The average spammer isn't going to go to that much trouble.

Thanks for this, Rich. The referral resource has been far from that since it was set up. I stopped looking at it soon after for this very reason (as have others I talked to). Seems that most of the "referrals" are, as you say, simply self-promos and solicitations for buyers and sellers. Too much to monitor I would think.  One has to wonder about the value in the overall scheme of things given how it is being used. Not sure that simply telling folks the guidelines will really work in this case. Let people pay for their ads and support AR like some are alrady doing.

Jeff 

Rich~ thanks for laying down the law!  Lately I've been ignoring my alerts for reerrals because they've all been garbage.

It is disappointing!  I say impose a point reduction penalty!

Hi Rich...It is great that the Rain has a benefit like this and thank you for the reminder on how we should use it properly in order to make it a worthwhile source of referrals.

Hoping I have some soon that I will be able to share with others.

Cheers,

Kathleen

Frank - that's actually not a bad idea. I'll bring that up at our next team meeting....

Yes I have noticed that, thanks for addressing that............

Rich, thank you for the strong reminder for all. I have been forgetting about that feature but I will remember it for the future! You have to know we all appreciate what you do in the building and preserving this site! It's great having you watch over us...Later in the rain~Deb

I am SO glad to find this post! I check that page regularly and was disappointed more than once with what I found there! Glad to see this is being taken care of!

WOW.  There are so many ANGRY people on this site! 

I'd like to build a network of PRESCREENED agents (not the kind that are easily angered) nationwide.  I hand out a lot of referrals, probably 2-4 a month of quality referrals.  Every time I get a request, I have to go searching for an agent.  It would be so nice if I already had someone pre-screened.  In our "down time" that is what my assistants and I work on...building that database.  Is that really so wrong?

I've used this "referral" posting only once... and you wouldn't believe the silly people that called me back - they lived on the other side of the country, they don't even know how to SPELL commercial, let alone handle a commercial transaction... isn't it the same thing?  I didn't get angry, I just didn't send them the referral.  The good news?  I found a fabulous agent to refer the commercial deal to, and it made me look good to my client.  The system works!  Plus, I put the silly people into my database and on a drip campaign - even though I'd never send them a referral, I'd still be happy to pay them for one they want to send to me.

There are REAL things to be frustrated with in this world, let's not sweat the small stuff. If you see an inappropriate posting, I think you can explain to that agent that the site is really only meant for posting needs for quality-I-need-this-now referrals...without getting angry.

Here's to having a little patience with each other.....

Alleluhiah!  I hope they get it this time.  I have been frustrated with that section for some time and I'm glad you addressed this.