So, this morning I received a very, um, interesting email from the contact form on my site. Here it is:
Name: Sabina ******
Email: ****sabina*******@outlook.com
Message: Hi,
I am from Wise OutReach, the content delivery wing of Wise Media, a UK-based digital marketing agency.
We have read your content on norphus.co.uk and would very much like to contribute an original article for your consideration. The said content would be exclusively written for your site.
Within the article, we would place a reference to one of our clients and for this request, we are able to pay $100 (via PayPal).
Please let us know if this is something you would be interested in. We are ready to send a draft or a sample piece for your perusal.
Yours sincerely,
Sabina
Time: 06/09/2022 at 02:52
IP Address: 119.93.*.*
Contact Form URL: https://norphus.co.uk/contact/Sent by an unverified visitor to your site.
Name and IP partially censored to protect the possibly innocent.
Anyway, Sabina, if that is your real name, I have questions and since I have no real desire to reply to your email and expose my email address to you, I’ll do it here in public instead. Here are my questions:
- If you work for this big, wonderful company, which incidentally I’ve never heard of, why are you sending me email from an Outlook.com email address? Can they not afford their own domain?
- I’ve run a reverse lookup on your IP address and apparently your IP address is based in the Philippines. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing against the Philippines, it looks like it’s a lovely place. I just find it a little odd that someone who works for the content arm of a UK marketing company is emailing me from the opposite side of the planet, and in the middle of the night for me no less.
- This site is a personal blog with stupid articles written by me and me only. It’s not a news site with multiple writers which I’m trying to make money from. I write it solely for my own amusement with no expectation of financial renumeration. I don’t even run adverts on the site. What would make you think that I want an “original article” written for me to go onto this site?
- Again, this site has barely any followers and not that much in the way of hits, and that’s fine. As I say, I write it for my own amusement. But bearing that in mind, I can’t see how putting your original article written exclusively for my site with a referral to your client, pedalling who knows what, is going to be worth a brass farthing to you and your client, let alone $100.
It’s possible albeit unlikely that you’ve got good answers to these questions, but I think I’m going to have to politely decline your kind offer. I hope you have better luck with some other poor sap.
***Update 12/09/2022***
Well, apparently Sabina hasn’t got the hint. She’s used the same contact form on my website, saying the following:
Message: Hi,
A while back I inquired whether it would be permissible to publish an article on norphus.co.uk.
As per the previous email, we would love to send you a draft for you to review. You would have the final say over the finished article. If this is agreeable to you we would be able to pay an annual payment via PayPal as a show of thanks!
Please get in touch if you would like to see a draft or receive more details.
Yours,
Sabina
Sabina, with all due respect, kindly do one. It’s not agreeable to me. This site isn’t here to shill whatever crap your sponsor wants me to shill. That’s all, thank you for your interest.
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