A new member going by the handle "BistroGirl" recently posted a message in the Entrepreneurs Forums asking about email marketing and a company called mUrgent:

I own a little bistro and I'm trying to draw a little more business, but I don't want to advertise because it can get costly. Someone suggested email marketing, so I've been looking into it and just want to get some opinions. Does anyone else in here use it? What do you think of it.

I found a company called mUrgent and they seem to be pretty good. It's affordable, and they call it "permission-based," so it's not like spamming. You have to get email addresses from your customers, and that's what you use. Has anyone heard of the company before? Any opinions would be great. Thanks in advance!

Seemingly innocuous enough, right? And the next reply was from an established member suggesting a different service.

A week later, someone under the name "MaureenJ" posted a reply saying that she was using a different service, but switched to mUrgent. Great -- users helping other users by sharing their experience, right?

Then another reply from "IrishDitty", a boutique owner who's been using mUrgent for 9 months.

OK, now I'm starting to get a little suspicious, and I start to investigate. Here's what I found:

• BistroGirl, MaureenJ, and IrishDitty all joined on September 15. Coincidence?
• The three posts are all precisely a week apart, within a couple of hours. Coincidence?
• All three posters have email addresses at Yahoo.com. Coincidence?
• All three of them have no forum signature with a link to their website, such that we could verify the existence of their business.
• All three posters have responded to no other posts in the forum and have not created any other posts. Coincidence?
• BistroGirl hasn't yet read MaureenJ's reply, and MaureenJ hasn't read IrishDitty's reply (I get to see that sort of info as moderator). Coincidence?

Coincidence? I think not.

I sent private messages to all three posters asking for an explanation. I also paid a visit to mUrgent's page and contacted them. I sent them a message using their contact form, which said they would respond within 72 hours. They haven't.

mUrgent says that they're 100% compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act. Unfortunately, discussion forums aren't yet covered by CAN-SPAM. So the only power those of us who run these forums have to fight back against this kind of deception and abuse is with our digital pens.

Decide for yourself, though. Let me know what you think about this by posting your thoughts in the forum.

UPDATE 10/15/2004: I checked with our tech support department, and it turns out that yes indeed, BistroGirl, MaureenJ, and IrishDitty are all aliases of the same user. Pretending to be your own satisfied customer(s) is fraud, isn't it?

UPDATE 10/16/2004: I'm apparently not the first person they've done this to:
mUrgent spam on the AardvarkBusiness.net Business Forum
mUrgent spam on Seeds of Wisdom Forum
More mUrgent spam on Seeds of Wisdom
mUrgent spam on News Registers Forum
mUrgent spam on The Small Business Community Forums
mUrgent spam on Teneric forums
mUrgent spam on Retailer News forums
mUrgent spam on Internet Marketing 4 Newbies
mUrgent spam on Forum for Webmasters
mUrgent spam on Home Business Websites
mUrgent spam on MLM Woman
mUrgent spam on Friends In Business
mUrgent spam on Food Service Discussion Forums
mUrgent spam on SBA Women's Business Center

This is just SO ridiculous... besides already having the goods on these guys, it should be readily obvious that bistro owners, teachers, and boutique owners don't spend all their time surfing discussion forums promoting their email marketing provider, especially not in the middle of the day!!!