Spam from Shakespeare Finance / Epurplemedia

Spammers have been taken to court by individuals in the past:

I hadn't thought of suing them for damages - that's an interesting idea. There's no doubt that spammers generally cost the Internet community billions of pounds/dollars in transit, defence and filtering costs and I've probably spent 100 hours or so in developing defences for my own little mail server, which despite being small attracts several thousands of spam-delivery attempts every day.

Further investigation shows that this particular spam was sent on behalf of Shakespeare Finance Ltd by a mail server owned by MSols Ltd and with click-through response measurement and "unsubscription requests" handled by Rupiz Media Ltd. There's evidence that all these companies have common ownership and that Shakespeare Finance pays 50 pounds per "secured homeowner lead". I intend to cause them considerable grief through complaints to the various regulators.

Mike.

It would not hurt to send them a letter before action (of which I believe there are examples on the web site) and seek damages - even if you decide to back out before it actually costs you money.

But that leaves them free to continue, surely, and though it's the easy way it won't do much good on its own.

Tiddy Ogg.

There are two possible courses of action here, which can be pursued in parallel. The first is to get the regulators involved; the second is to pursue them directly for damages. Only the first of these is likely to lead to them actually being forced to stop spamming, while, on the other hand, any private legal action taken without what is generally considered the normal process (eg, sending a letter before action) is likely to be given short shrift by the judge. So there's no harm in sending the letter; it doesn't stop you complaining to the regulators as well and it may result in some monetary compnesation without the need for legal action.

Mark

Don't expect any action from the government. They're too busy wasting money on advertising.