Image by Yoyon Pujiyono - The Noun Project
Jason Squires is a U.K. LinkedIn trainer and spammer. I’ve never heard of him, never had contact with him, never downloaded something from him and yet, he added me to his email list. He may have forgotten about GDPR and certainly sent his email to the worst possible recipient. You see I have been unsubscribing from emails for the past decade or maybe longer, so I can spot a spam email instantly, it stands out like a big SORE thumb, BOOM!
First things first figure out via the email header which email client he used and after a bit of careful examination I found that it was elasticemail. So found their website and reached out to them, it doesn’t always work, these companies don’t usually want to admit to their paying customers using their servers to spam people, but surprisingly this one responded back very fast with a very positive answer in terms of investigating it and taking action, you can see the start of the email thread below.
“Hello Jason, I received an email from you today. I am curious, we don't know each other, we're not connected on LinkedIn, how exactly did you or your team get hold of my email. I really am interested in knowing this please. Thank you for your response in advance. Regards, Michael
Hi Michael, my apologies for the delayed reply, I only check my Twitter DMs once or twice per week...
Ah, yes, it appears that my lead generation freelancer picked up your email from your https://bio.link/stayingaliveuk page.
He was tasked to find business owners who would benefit from using LinkedIn, in order for me to invite them to my LinkedIn course.
As we've now had this exchange, and you've received the invitation, I'll remove your email address from further comms.
Thanks Michael, and enjoy your day,
Jason”
“Jason, thanks for coming back to me. Sorry to say that I hadn't even set up my bio link page until way after I received your email. So your lead generation freelancer picked it up somewhere else and why is she/he even collecting email addresses this way? I can't accept that it's a valid reason to be looking for business owners who might benefit. I used to train people how to use LinkedIn for 5 years, so it's not a valid excuse to just add me to a list. It's a significant flaw in your marketing approach Jason, sorry to be so damning, I just hate spammers.”
Entrepreneurs like Jason believe that outsourcing lead generation to cheap third party companies who may adopt scrupulous practices is a clever and cost-effective thing to do. There are no shortcuts with marketing if you want to keep your reputation in tact. As far as I’m concerned Jason’s reputation in my mind is not great at all, I don’t trust him, I believe he has been dishonest about the truth and he won’t face up to his responsibility either.
I don’t like exposing people’s mistakes, I have made and make plenty in my business life, but I will never ever hide behind lies.
With algorithms and data harvesting a daunting prospect, being able to unpick someone’s inauthentic practice is in some strange way rather satisfying. Spammer beware!
I looked up the meaning of squire in the English language.
“A man of high social standing who owns and lives on an estate in a rural area, especially the chief landowner in such an area.”
