What's Your Most Jaw-Droppingly Spammy Link ( or Promo) Request?

[DanielFreedman]

Sheesh.

I get them every day. But this one takes the cake. It's from a woman I met once in my life on a long run with my running club. That was two years ago. Now she wants me to endorse her -- even though I know nothing about her professionally.

But wait, there's more. She's not much of a runner. As it happens, I know a thing  or two about fitness -- having edited a fitness magazine and worked on websites for many top fitness and nutrition pros. The idea of an MSW doing fitness programs for people with medical problems raises all kinds of red flags.

She sent this Facebook IM:

Hi Daniel - hope all is well! I was wondering if you can share my page with your friends, with the following message (or something similar). Thank you so much in advance!

My friend XXXXXX, MSW, has been running XXXX Personal Training for the past 18 years. She specializes in exercise programming for people who have medical problems, everything from heart problems to chronic pain conditions. She works on site in her clients' homes in midtown and downtown XXXXXX. Please contact her if you know anyone who would benefit from her expertise.
http://www.facebook.com/pagesXXXX
XXXX Personal Training
We specialize in helping people who are experiencing medical issues incorporate exercise into their treatment plan. We work as a team with all other professionals involved in your care, whether that is your medical doctor, naturopath, physiotherapist, osteopath, chiropractor, massage therapist, or...
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[BeardoCo]

Not really a spammy link promo or anything, but I have an SEO client who ranks number 1 for...

generic keyword such as :  "land survey company" and 20 surround cities.  He emailed me a couple day ago asking me to target "company surveying city name" sigh....

[EGOL]

I have a blog that gets very short posts about industry news (not promotional stuff - genuine news).

I hate it when somebody sends a spammy promo request (which either gets deleted manually or filtered (thanks to gmail you can have an unlimited number of filters).

Then they call on the phone to be sure that I got it.

I feel like saying...  "Nobody gives a damn about your ________ (tenth anniversary, staff changes, retirements, president's chest thumping video)".   My readers would unsubscribe if I published that crap.

[DanielFreedman]

Right. In a previous life, I headed the news dept. of a TV station.

I would regularly get calls from clueless PR people who asked the question: "Did you get my press release?"

What I always felt like saying (but usually was able to restrain myself from saying) was:

"How the hell would I know? And please F&*% off and die a slow painful death. We receive hundreds of press releases every day and 99.99% of the time it's a waste of our time to have even the most junior staff member read them. You have cost me time and money -- and how dare you? I resent it, I hate you, and I have now made a mental note of the idiot company dumb enough to have hired you. BTW, I'm wondering how this call even eneded up being routed to me. Something went wrong."

[EGOL]

lol....  thanks for the laugh!