Note: Since I first posted this, Ryan Pitylak has completely abandoned the spam business, and in fact has become an ardent anti-spammer. Please see this post for an update.
Meet Ryan Pitylak: college student, small business man, spammer extraordinaire. Remember that name in case you ever run into him.
Now here's the part I really don't understand.
The 22-year-old University of Texas advertising major lives in a Deep Eddy house valued at $450,000 for tax purposes, with a late-model Jaguar parked in the driveway.[...]
Pitylak was 14 and living in Ann Arbor, Mich., when he created in 1997 what appears to have been his first Internet marketing scheme, according to a Google search. His e-mail pitch, for a company he called Gates Computer Systems, offered advertisers the chance to buy ads on a Web site for $79 per month.
By 2002, Pitylak had expanded his business: That year, anti-spam watchdog groups began tracing his name attached to the registrations for numerous Internet sites responsible for distributing spam marketing offers.
With a partner, Mark Trotter, Pitylak set up a company called PayPerAction LLC and, under that name, registered more than 200 other aliases for the company with the Texas secretary of state.
The companies, with names such as National Insurance Exchange, Freedom Quote and Mortgage Rate Network, typically offer "5 free health insurance quotes" or "incredible 3.51% mortgage rates." Clicking on the link in a message produces a form asking for information such as name, address and household income.
Completed forms are sold to agents of legitimate companies. The agents say they pay $3 to $7 for each referral.
That may not sound like much, but the economics of spam make the potential payback highly lucrative.
It is not known how many e-mails Pitylak's companies have generated, but experts say the typical spammer sends out millions of messages each month to addresses purchased from e-mail marketing firms or culled from public Internet sites, forums and chat rooms.
One more name to put on your watch list:
Companies that buy the consumer information generated from Pitylak's spam are unapologetic about a practice that vast numbers of consumers consider a nuisance."I just buy them from the lead companies," said Kathy Mobley, regional director for MEGA Life and Health, based in North Richland Hills. "I don't know how they get them. And I don't care. As independent contractors, we can market our business however we want to by legal means."
This is why my policy is "If I don't know you, you're letter is automatically deleted".
Posted by: William Hughes on August 4, 2004 10:09 AMRyan's email address is ryan@leadplex.com if you'd like to let him know what you think of his business.
Posted by: sarah on August 4, 2004 12:15 PMUm, isn't it best not to give Ryan a valid email address to sell?
Does the UT program he's in have a required Business Ethics class?
Posted by: Michael on August 4, 2004 12:22 PMAnother possibility is that he has it set up so that it "automatically" clicks as soon as someone answers an email. Back when I used Outlook Express, I'd run in to those occasionally.
Posted by: R. Alex on August 4, 2004 1:09 PMHere is my info on the UT directory:
Name Ryan Pitylak
Ryan Samuel Pitylak
Title Junior, Advertising (upper division)
College/Department College of Communication
Home Phone +1 512-320-9930
Home Address 2002a Guadalupe St # 290
Austin, TX 78705-5609-02
Well, they finally got him....
Posted by: Adrianne Truett on January 13, 2005 10:11 PMactully, his real address is
1005 POSSUM TROT
austin, tx
:)
Posted by: none on January 14, 2005 11:08 AMPitylak's accurate info is
Ryan Samuel Pitylak
DOB 05/22/1982
TX Drivers License No. 2119216
Lives at
1005 Possum Trot
Austin, TX 78703
need i suggest that we all spend some time signing this son of a b**** up for every mailing address/"free offer" on the net?
he can filter email
thousands of letters per day, mixed in with his desired mail, however, would be very annoying.
Whatever man. I dislike spam as much as the next guy, but as an oportunist, I can't hate this man for seizing his fortune. I love this country...
Posted by: whatever on May 10, 2005 8:59 AMSo, this is to follow-up on the comments left on this blog. This is my first post on this site.
As you all know, I was in the Spamming business until about one year ago. I have made a dramatic change in opinion about the industry and I would like to become a part of, and an advocate for, the anti-spam industry. I will be providing services to businesses in the future so that they can become better prepared to fight off spam. This was not a switch motivated by money, but an actual switch in opinion about what spam is, and how it should be handled in the community. Please visit my website if you're interested in more information.
To clarify, I actually did take a Business Ethics class at the University of Texas-Austin. I wrote a paper about how Multi National Corporations should engage in developing countries (this paper is available at my website).
I hope that you all are having good luck in fighting your spam, and I hope that one day I will be making your life easier by limiting the amount of work that you have to put forth to fight your spam.
Posted by: Ryan Pitylak on March 8, 2006 2:24 AMPlease visit my blog to discuss any anti-spam related issues.
Also, visit any of the following major anti-spam providers to learn more about how to fight against the spam problem. This information is being referenced from How to Fight Spam!.
Open Relay Database
Open Relay Blackhole Zones
OsiruSoft's Open Relay Spam Stopper
Dorkslayers
SpamCop
Inform the government!
Geektools
Sam Spade
net.demon spam
fighting tools (including URL demunger!)
Abuse.net
bitch-list.net
Mail Abuse Prevention
System
MAPS
Realtime Blackhole List
MAPS
Relay Spam StopperMAPS
Dialup Users ListMAPS
Transport Security Initiative
"http://www.rfc-ignorant.org">RFC-Ignorant.org
SpamBouncerCAUCE
Spamhaus Project