Rejects

It's not that the company gets 1.6 million calls every month that caught my attention. It's not even the service they provide--- "humorous rejection messages." What caught my attention is the company's boast  that it is " the industry leader in humorous rejection services."

Now on the surface it might seem a bit of an overreach to call a "humorous rejection message business" an "Industry". But  Rejection Hotline doesn't make its money sending out rejection letters. It makes its money by selling the "mailing lists" of the people who either (1) sign up for a phony number or (2) make the mistake of emailing into the service and receiving a rejection email.

Here's how it works. People sign up for a phony phone number or the simply send out an email with an address that will activate an automatic "reject letter" to anyone sending an email to the address.

When you sign up for the phone number, the company captures your info and sells. When people try to send an email to your phony address, their emails are captured.

How valuable are these lists? According to an expert on a local radio program ( didn't catch her name)-- these lists fetch about  $100,000 a pop.

One would think that if Rejection Hotline was an industry leader, there would be a lot of other similar businesses in "the industry."

I found one: Papernapkin.net/Not so sure how their business is going. Their blog hasn't been updated since 2004 and they promise participants that they would "share" the emails of folks who unwittingly send an email to the phony address. I didn't find any.

If  you were to send an email at (anyname) @paamail.com  you would receive a message that starts out like this.

Subject: Nice to hear from you

Ha ha, just kidding. Actually, this is a rejection letter. The person who gave you this email address does not want to have anything to do with you.

This is probably bad news, and many people cope with bad news in phases: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Let us help you through these:

"It must be a mistake": Nope. You got an address in the form [email protected] or [email protected], right? Well, all we here at papernapkin.net do is send rejection notices. If you got this email address, it wasn't an accident. No, you've definitely been rejected.

I also founded a site called Blackmail  for $1.49 you can send a nontraceable email that promises to:

"Send anonymous,untraceable blackmail revenge email pranks."

It's sites like this that reminds me it was worth the $249 to upgrade to Microsoft Office 2003 so all my junk mail goes into an automatic junk file. Delete. Delete. Delete.

SEND ANONYMOUS UNTRACEABLE BLACKMAIL REVENGE EMAIL PRANKS. RELAX AND LET BLACKMAIL DO YOUR DIRTY WORK FOR YOU!

CHOOSE FROM AN ASSORTMENT OF OUTRAGEOUS ANIMATIONS TO ACCOMPANY YOUR BLACKMAIL. JUST TYPE AND SEND...NOTHING COULD BE EASIER! WHY TAKE ALL THAT CRUD WHEN YOU COULD BE EVENING THE ODDS?

NOW YOU CAN GET "BLACK" AT THEM AND SEND ANONYMOUS UNTRACEABLE BLACKMAIL REVENGE EMAIL PRANKS. RELAX AND LET BLACKMAIL DO YOUR DIRTY WORK FOR YOU!

CHOOSE FROM AN ASSORTMENT OF OUTRAGEOUS ANIMATIONS TO ACCOMPANY YOUR BLACKMAIL. JUST TYPE AND SEND...NOTHING COULD BE EASIER! WHY TAKE ALL THAT CRUD WHEN YOU COULD BE EVENING THE ODDS?

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