Having seen what you sent, I would immediately agree with listing
all the "CLEARCUT" domains, including at the least, CLEARCUTSAVINGS. COM,
ccs44. com, peakedig. com, peakedigital. com and all the others you had
previously listed.
It does look like a pretty clear case of "affiliate" abuse, and I'm
still willing to give inphonic the benefit of the doubt. I would send an
email (with copies of everything) to affiliates(a)inphonic.com and see what
kind of response you get - if they don't drop clearcut/peakedigital et. al.,
I will stop buying from them and recommending them (I just sent them somebody
on Friday, who bought two phones for $270 less than the local Cingular Store
wanted for the same Cingular package - they were about $90 under Amazon).
InPhonic is big, not Fortune 500, but *very* large. They do have
"emarketing", but as I have said - I've never gotten anything from them
despite the fact that they have a valid email address (unique, so I also
know it has never been sold or "rented"). The 800 number on the web pages
will eventually get someone who will have a "real" manager (but still in
"sales") call back - Corporate Communications is (202) 333-0001, and from
their own Sprint press release (also on their pages), the V.P. for
Corporate Communications is "Tripp Donnelly", email tdonnelly(a)inphonic.com.
I have had *such* good dealings with them that I would expect some quick
response - copy him as well as the affiliate address above.
Right now, I say inphonic looks clean, but is implicated by bad
management of their affiliate program. The clearcut/peakedigital people
are using at least two "spam friendly" hosting providers and should be
listed right away (i.e. at least one is the same as the one Ralsky used
for the emails that got Verizon to sue him - clearcut is using Yikes for
both "unsubscribe" and a 1by1 pixel marker in the spam copy you sent).
Please tell me/us whatever you get back from InPhonic. It will
certainly affect my sending them customers (I'm normally a quite loyal
customer when I find a company with good service - though admittedly
their "free extras" are junk).
Bye,
Paul Shupak
track(a)plectere.com