Complaint Review: Ironclad Media

I created an account with www.beartrapping.com which is an adult, gay oriented website. Most adult/gay *quality* web sites offer a trial membership for anywhere from $1 to $5 for a few days to allow the user to browse the site to discover if the site has content they like. This site has no such offer.

Since joining, I regularly receive e-mails from addresses such as BearMail_January12006@BearTrapping.com, Pager_January12006@BearTrapping.com, etc... After seeing how user-unfriendly the navigation is compared to *quality* web sites and the fact that any link you click on takes you to a page that says "This content requires a subscription", I give up.

At the bottom of each regularly received e-mail is a statement that reads something like:

To remove your name from this mailing list type http://www.beartrapping.com/email_cleanup.cfm?address=XXXX@comcast.net into your browser.

or

You are receiving this email because you have an active, open account on BearTrapping.com - To inactivate your account type http://www.beartrapping.com/email_cleanup.cfm?address=XXXX@comcast.net into your browser.

I consider myself a responsible, intelligent adult. Since I remember entering information with this web site, I do not consider the regular e-mail SPAM. However, receiving regular e-mail from a web site that looks like a 5th grader designed it, does not interest me. I decided to have my e-mail removed.

I followed the instructions in each of the e-mails, copying and pasting the URL into my browser, each time receiving a message "Your email address has been inactivated. Thank you for using IronClad Media Web Services." only to receive more e-mails the next day, and days after that.

At this point I figured that following the instructions provided was not going to stop the regular e-mails so I sent an e-mail to the webmaster using the address webmaster@beartrapping.com.

My e-mail was short and simple:

-----Original Message-----
From: XXXX@comcast.net [mailto:XXXX@comcast.net]
Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2006 12:04 PM
To: 'webmaster@beartrapping.com'
Subject: Please Remove My E-mail Address and Cancel This Account

Please remove mmy E-mail address and cancel this account.

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Within one hour, I received the following response:

-----Original Message-----
From: BearDen [mailto:BearDen@BearTrapping.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2006 12:54 PM
To: XXXX@comcast.net
Subject: RE: Please Remove My E-mail Address and Cancel This Account

Thank you for emailing customer service. We're sorry, but you may not use our sites without accepting email from us. That is part of our Terms of Service, which you agreed to when you created your account, and each time you used it. Since you're certainly a responsible adult, we're certain that you actually read it before you created your account. It is the same principle where you cannot watch NBC without them being permitted to market cholesterol drugs and SUV's to you every 15 minutes of every single day.

Our marketing policy is designed to show you the quantity of content we offer our subscribers (subscribers do not receive these promotional emails), a quantity that is not matched by any of our competitors, regardless of the fact that they charge up to 4 times as much as we do for access to their systems. If you're one of those people looking for free porn, STOP. The internet isn't some giant United Way charity for scumbags looking for free porn. Our subscription prices are the lowest, we have the most content and
entertainment resources, and it's not free to bring that to you.

The rules are simple. Use the url at the bottom of the email you received to inactivate your account - and don't come back - to any of our sites. You must do this yourself so that we can record your IP address with the transaction, in the event that at some point in the future you try to slide through our system, use your account, then whine that you didn't and start crying 'spam'.

If, on the off chance you're using a sub-standard mail reader such as Yahoo mail, you may have to work a little harder to copy the link since those readers do not display HTML formatted mail properly, and omit the background color of emails....so that the URL looks like silver text on a white background....rest assured though it is there....and this is a perfect opportunity to assess the services you're getting from those providers.

Gary Niederhelman
IronClad Media

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At first, I was insulted but then after a bit, I just had to laugh. What kind of person who runs a business would send such an e-mail to a user regardless if the user has paid for the service or not. If this user is a potential paying customer, they certainly would not be now.

I must admit, I did not read the terms of service when I originally signed up. However, I have since done so; all 4,510 words of it. I was unable to locate any verbage describing how to cancel or terminate the account. However, I did read that if I'm dishonest or use deception when joining, that Ironclad will immediately terminate my account and collect a $10,000.00 termination fee. Perhaps I should sign up for the service again, using false information with the same e-mail address. Good luck on getting that ten grand!

I'm not going to go into all of the issues I could rebut with Mr. Niederhelman's e-mail because by reading the other posts, it is clear he lacks the intelligence to grasp basic business and social concepts (i.e. referring to users with words such as "scumbag", "troublemaker", etc...).

That all said and done, I'll just put the beartrapping.com domain on my e-mail's block list. I wish I had found ripoffreport.com prior to joining this site. Perhaps my post and those made by others will help prevent other "responsible adults" from the joys of dealing with Mr. Niederhelman and his oh so many web sites.

One last note, if Mr. Niederhelman wants to provide a response to my complaint, I'll save him the trouble and copy/paste the same response he provides to other complaints, whether the response addresses the issue or not:

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"Nice that this complainant took a partial sentence of our response and twisted it to fit his needs. Fact is, we cannot delete profiles because of people like him. When he returns to one of our many sites, and they almost invariably do, we need to be able to match the troublemaker with their past records across all of our sites/databases. Because of scumbags like this one who think that a company's services should be provided to them for free, we have to keep every record, and every email address and every IP and login time for every user. That way when they cry to sites like this or other agencies we can cover our asses. And it's not like we're trying to rip anyone off. Our subscription prices are consistently lower than any other gay adult site. Typically a year runs $36 to $48 but we regularly have sales selling a year for $24. Now, if you're in the boat with this complainant, take heed: be a responsible internet user, read a sites terms of service BEFORE you create an account, and if you're looking for a free ride, turn off your computer.

Gary - Belmar, New Jersey
U.S.A."

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Kent
Foster City, California
U.S.A.