muhuk.com

A regular surfer might not have proper netiquette. It is desirable, but I wouldn’t blame her if she makes something inappropriate. Learning rules and conventions of Internet takes time. As you get more and more exposed to different communities and tools and situations, you should pick it up.

An Internet startup however is a completely different story. If you are doing business online you are supposed to know what you can and can not do. You can’t SPAM for instance. You just can’t. There’s no excuse for such an act from Internet companies. Correcting such mistakes is marginally harder than correcting technical mistakes. Once people mark you evil, it is painful to fix.

Here’s a summary what happened between a Turkish startup CVyolla.com and me last week. They are service that send your CV’s to companies.

1. I Receive A CV From CVyolla.com

This may not sound extraordinary, since that’s what they do. But I don’t have a corporate account with them, or any other kind of membership. I might have visited their homepage a couple of times, that doesn’t count as a sign up, does it? So CVyolla.com is SPAMming people.

I noticed a username (my email address) and a login address at the bottom of this message. So I thought I should check it out¹.

2. CVyolla.com Might Be Stealing Your Identity Too

Before I could log in, I had to request my password via forgot my password link. I couldn’t possibly remember a password that I have never created, could I? It became clear once I logged in (see image below). Company name Muhuk, WTF? CVyolla.com is creating accounts on your behalf to inflate their company portfolio. This is not just uncool, this is immoral. Shame on you CVyolla.com.

I have never signed up in your service, I have never accepted your terms of service. How impudent of you to think you can just create a mock account on my behalf and start sending stuff to my personal e-mail!

3. When Will Companies Learn Not To Reply With Stupid Anonymous E-mails

Despite things being clear enough, I wanted to hear the story from their side. Maybe there has been a mistake of some sort. Or maybe they would understand what they have been doing is wrong. I would be writing a completely different post today if they had just accepted both SPAMming and identity theft were wrong and assured me that they’d stop doing it. But, no. Instead they have sent me some nonsense reply. Before I get into the contents of this reply, there’s one very important issue with this reply.

Just as many other Internet companies, CVyolla.com was lacking the decency to reply my message with a real name and a real e-mail address. See, I am sending you with my real name, as a person, naturally I expect to communicate with a person. It is simply rude to reply your visitors/customers with a faceless nameless e-mail. If you are having difficulty to figure out how to configure your e-mails, drop me a line and I’ll try to help, seriously. Show some respect to your correspondents.

OK, back to the contents of CVyolla.com’s reply to my inquiry, faceless representative says:

1. They have taken my e-mail address from my webpage² or from a job listing³ or a public source such as an union or trade chamber⁴.
2. They have sent me an e-mail telling me that I can opt-out before they started sending me SPAM.. erm, notifications.
3. Since I haven’t opt out, they have decided that they can send their SPAM. But now upon my request they have frozen my account.

Let’s see;

1. You probably found my e-mail address in an illegally collected list that you have bought. I seriously doubt you’d ever come read my blog and collect my e-mail address then. Anyway, regardless of how you found my e-mail address, you have no right to SPAM me.
2. “Oh, we have given you an opt-out option” is just such a miserable, lame excuse it makes me throw up. Hell with your opt-out, where have you been the last eight years? It’s probably marked as SPAM instantly, and you would find that convenient, wouldn’t you?
3. What account? I never signed up! It’s you deceiving yourself and those who entrusted their CV’s to you.

I wish CVyolla.com handled this a little better. If you don’t manage your online conversations professionally, or if you try the same management strategy with offline customer relations, you fail. If you SPAM, you fail. If you tell people crap like opt-out, you fail. If you make up accounts on other people/entities without their consent, you fail big time. I hope they correct these wrongs soon.

PS: Just as I was preparing to submit this post, I got another CV from CVyolla.com. So much from freezing my account upon my request, eh! Mega-fail, if you ask me.

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1: Having a terrible memory, I though for a second, maybe I had signed up once and then I forgot about it. But that’s not the case, read on.

2: I don’t display this e-mail in my work site, it is only displayed in my personal site. Where there is no mention to work related stuff.

3: This e-mail is not mentioned in any job listing.

4: Again, it’s not listed in such places.