Trial Shows How Spammers Operate

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Monty Solomon <monty () roscom com>
Date: November 15, 2004 12:18:07 AM EST
To: undisclosed-recipient:;
Subject: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate

Trial Shows How Spammers Operate

14 November 2004, 8:44pm ET
By MATTHEW BARAKAT AP Business Writer

LEESBURG, Va. (AP) -- As one of the world's most prolific spammers,
Jeremy Jaynes pumped out at least 10 million e-mails a day with the
help of 16 high-speed lines, the kind of Internet capacity a
1,000-employee company would need.

Jaynes' business was remarkably lucrative; prosecutors say he grossed
up to $750,000 per month. If you have an e-mail account, chances are
Jaynes tried to get your attention, pitching software, pornography
and work-at-home schemes.

The eight-day trial that ended in his conviction this month shed
light on the operations of a 30-year-old former purveyor of physical
junk mail who worked with minimal assistance out of a nondescript
house in Raleigh, N.C.

A state jury in Leesburg has recommended a nine-year prison term in
the nation's first felony trial of spam purveyors. Sentencing is set
for February.

During the trial, prosecutors focused on three products that Jaynes
hawked: software that promises to clean computers of private
information; a service for choosing penny stocks to invest in; and a
"FedEx refund processor" that promised $75-an-hour work but did
little more than give buyers access to a Web site of delinquent FedEx
accounts.

Jaynes, going by Gaven Stubberfield and other aliases, had
established a niche as a pornography purveyor, said Assistant
Attorney General Russell McGuire, who prosecuted the case. But Jaynes
was constantly tweaking and rotating products.

Relatively few people actually responded to Jaynes' pitches. In a
typical month, prosecutors said during the trial, Jaynes might
receive 10,000 to 17,000 credit card orders, thus making money on
perhaps only one of every 30,000 e-mails he sent out.

But he earned $40 a pop, and the undertaking was so vast that Jaynes
could still pull in $400,000 to $750,000 a month, while spending
perhaps $50,000 on bandwidth and other overhead, McGuire said.

...

http://finance.lycos.com/qc/news/story.aspx?story=200411150144_APO_V5198


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