September 1, 2007
I’ve been had. I should have known better, but in my eagerness to check out new Social Networking sites, I quickly replied “yes” to an invite I received this morning from someone I trusted. The invite was to join Quechup. The name should have been the first clue, followed quickly by their slogan, “the social networking platform sweeping the globe”. That’s funny, I’ve never heard of them. The fact that the person that invited me hadn’t mentioned it on Twitter AND would share one of his invites with me also seemed odd, but I jumped in anyway.
Like many social networking sites, Quechup allows you to bump your Gmail or Yahoo contact list up against it’s database to see if you have friends already in the network. What they don’t tell you is that they then send an invite to everyone in your contact list, saying that you gave permission when, in fact, you did not.
In my book that’s called SPAMMING! These guys should be shut down now!
If you received an invite from me, I am truly sorry. Please delete the email and do not register on Quechup.
September 1, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Glad to know, I received a similar invite this morning. I won’t boot up. thanks for the heads up.
September 1, 2007 at 2:30 pm
No worries, Doug. I received your email, but found out about the spamming from a blog post before so didn’t sign-up.
This tactic doesn’t make sense to me. They just end up making people mad…that can’t be a good way to get positive attention for a new networking site.
September 1, 2007 at 3:05 pm
[...] guess what: Other people had the same problem: here, here, here, here, and [...]
September 4, 2007 at 8:07 pm
There’s worse. I just posted about another social site that lets people submit profiles for other people — you could be there already, scraped from bits and pieces found here and there. Shhht, Peek You is reading and scraping.
September 6, 2007 at 4:31 pm
[...] I’ve been had. I should have known better, but in my eagerness to check out new Social Networking sites, I quickly replied “yes” to an invite I received this morning from someone I trusted. (link) [...]
September 11, 2007 at 5:18 pm
I’ve been had as well. Now what do I do?
September 11, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Jayne, I went back to Quechup and deleted my account. That’s what I would recommend.
Doug