I, along with many others, had a piece of paper taped to my door in Broomfield a couple of days ago.
It claimed that a sex offender had moved into "this" area and that everyone needed to "become aware." Then it said I should "Fined [sic] out who they are and what their address is!"
It also listed a website address which I won't even bother to include in this blog.
I went to that address not so much because I believed it, but because my bullshit meter sensed this was going to be ripe for blogging. Not only was it ripe for a little ol' Broomfield Real Estate blog, it was featured on 9 News and in the Rocky Mountain News within hours.
After visiting this anonymous (yes, the first thing I did was look up the domain registration) website I notice that I'm required to enter my email address - furthering the suspicion I am already feeling - I enter the "junk" email address I use just for such purposes.
After I enter my email address I am directed to a page (that I of course cut and pasted into a Word doc) that informs me, amongst a lot of legal mumbo jumbo, that
"I am giving affirmative consent as defined in 15 U.S.C. § 7702(1) to the use of my e-mail address for the purposes of commercial electronic mail transmission by [website address] or its designee, parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, and employees affiliate in compliance with 15 U.S.C. §7704."
So by entering your email address to get this alleged vital information you give Mr. Anonymous Bad Speller full-fledged permission to spam the crap out of you and to sell your email address to folks who will also spam the crap out of you.
On top of it Mr. Anonymous Bad Speller wants to charge you $4.95 a month for information you can get free of charge from the Broomfield Police Department. Sell your email address AND charge you $4.95 a month for FREE information. Wow. What a bargain!
Today's Rocky Mountain News article on the whole flier scam quotes a person who said she was inundated with spam after she entered her email address.
What really has me riled up about this is the way some people are willing to take advantage of other's fear all in the guise of "caring."
As the saying goes, "Scratch an altruist, watch a hypocrite bleed." If this person were truly doing this out of the goodness of his heart he'd simply inform folks that they could get this information free of charge from their local Police Department. He wouldn't charge them for it or sell their email address when they fall for his ploy.
What incenses me even further is that the Broomfield Police Department is reporting that they have been inundated with calls from concerned people. Some callers were downright scared. In fact some are even panicking.
Mr. Anonymous Bad Speller you can claim that you need to maintain your anonymity because of the nature of this "work" and you can claim that you're helping others all you want, this notice was clearly worded to scare people and send them running to their computers and hopefully cough up $4.95.
What would have happened, God forbid, if a small child had some sort of life threatening emergency but had been unable to reach the police because so many people were calling because they were frightened about these faux notices?
Mr. Anonymous Bad Speller ought to be charged for the cost of the increased calls into the police department and the 911 center. Especially considering this person isn't even a member of the Broomfield community - it appears that he lives in Colorado Springs and as the Rocky is reporting hired homeless people to pass out his fliers.
If you are concerned about the safety of your neighborhood, you can obtain a list of registered sex offenders, FREE OF CHARGE, by going to the Broomfield Police Department anytime, M-F, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Colorado law requires, by the way, that a community be notified if a sexually violent predator is living in a particular neighborhood. This usually does not happen without fanfare either. Community discussions are held with police and it generally creates enough fuss that most media outlets cover it. For the most part, it's not going to escape many people's notice.
You can search for certain types of sex offenders here at the website for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation FREE OF CHARGE http://sor.state.co.us/. Note that you can also request a list of registered sex offenders here as well.
Find out more about Colorado's Sex Offender Registry here http://www.sexcriminals.com/regs/1013.html
Finally, you can also pay $6.85 to the CBI for a Colorado criminal history background check here https://www.cbirecordscheck.com/Index.asp. I've even used it myself and thought it was extremely thorough.
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