5 ms·

It's used not just by spammers, but by sales reps, too. Dell recently did this to about half a dozen people on my team. 'Q2 Budget Review', which sounds offici

It's used not just by spammers, but by sales reps, too. Dell recently did this to about half a dozen people on my team. 'Q2 Budget Review', which sounds official, but is really a Dell rep trying to sell you junk that magically pops up on your calendar _even if you mark their message as spam_. Dirty way to get by executive assistants, too.

kstrauser 6y ago
That sounds like an excellent way to make me ban all inbound traffic from that vendor.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  It's going directly from the vendor to Google. How exactly would you block that traffic?
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
    You may not be able to block the calendar spam with current tools, but if you're in a decision-making role, you can block e-mails or blacklist the vendor so your purchasing department knows that they cannot order from them.
pavel_lishin 6y ago
> It's used not just by spammers, but by sales reps, too. Not sure there's a distinction there.
- superkuh 6y ago
  Spammers don't have the corporate liability protections that allow corporate employees to spam without worry. So really, spammers are better people.
WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
> Dell recently did this to about half a dozen people on my team. 'Q2 Budget Review', If you put this shit on my calendar, I will never purchase a product from you. I will additionally, at my own discretion, use it as proof that you have had a data breach and are unable to keep your accounts safe since no real company would really do this on purpose.
- o-__-o 6y ago
  For every one person who vows to never purchase their product, 10 others become useful leads.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
    Yes, but for every person I tell that they had a data breach causing them to phish their customers through calendar, I can poison 50 people in each organization, then they can poison 50 and so forth... let's call it exponential growth of the DELL-20 coronavirus.
    - malux85 6y ago
      And each of those 10 successes tells 50, Don’t you get it?! They wouldn’t do it if it didn’t work, and you are vastly outnumbered. It’s not right, it’s bloody annoying, but it’s there and it’s not going away. Google needs to fix the root problem, so that the spammy behaviour is not possible.
      - tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
        I'm not claiming that you're wrong because I don't have any data to the contrary, but "They wouldn’t do it if it didn’t work" isn't a strong argument. It's only true assuming rational actors and perfect information. It is quite possible that the successes are more visible than the failures and thus it seems like it works. Or it "works" for the sales rep because he gets more leads and thus a bigger bonus, while hurting the company - but the company hasn't figured that out yet. Or it works in the short term but isn't worth the reputation damage in the long term. Of course it's also possible that it just works, just pointing out that reality shows that people and companies often do things that are just stupid.
Simulacra 6y ago
We had someone try this at a company I worked at previously. The target was so angry they aggressively complained; the company fired the salesman. It boggles the mind why a sales person would do something that is likely to be seen as an invasion to the prospect.
- dreamcompiler 6y ago
  > It boggles the mind why a sales person would do something that is likely to be seen as an invasion to the prospect. Sales droids don't think the same way regular people do. A lot of them really believe everybody is as extroverted as they are and introverts are just pretending. And that everybody would be as excited about their product as they are, if they only knew about it. The best sales people can adopt the point of view of their prospects; mediocre ones cannot.
  - rpeden 6y ago
    That really hasn’t been my experience when working alongside sales people at the companies I’ve worked for. I definitely wouldn’t call any of them sales droids. Usually they’re just given really tough goals and quotas to hit. And while none of the salespeople I’ve worked with would book unsolicited appointments, I could see it happening at companies who don’t have a very mature sales org and just throw their account managers to the sharks and expect them to make it rain. From experience, I suspect that most salespeople who resort to invasive tactics really don’t expect everybody to be excited about their product. They are just desperately trying to keep their heads above water to avoid getting fired - a very human, non droid like thing to do. That doesn’t excuse it, of course.
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      That really hasn’t been my experience when working alongside sales people at the companies I’ve worked for. I'll outweigh your anecdote with mine, because the only two companies where I had to work with sales people, in both places the sales people were exactly as the parent described. One cheated on his bride-to-be just to make a sale.

kstrauser 6y ago

That sounds like an excellent way to make me ban all inbound traffic from that vendor.

reaperducer 6y ago
It's going directly from the vendor to Google. How exactly would you block that traffic?
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  You may not be able to block the calendar spam with current tools, but if you're in a decision-making role, you can block e-mails or blacklist the vendor so your purchasing department knows that they cannot order from them.

pavel_lishin 6y ago

> It's used not just by spammers, but by sales reps, too. Not sure there's a distinction there.

superkuh 6y ago
Spammers don't have the corporate liability protections that allow corporate employees to spam without worry. So really, spammers are better people.

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago

> Dell recently did this to about half a dozen people on my team. 'Q2 Budget Review', If you put this shit on my calendar, I will never purchase a product from you. I will additionally, at my own discretion, use it as proof that you have had a data breach and are unable to keep your accounts safe since no real company would really do this on purpose.

o-__-o 6y ago
For every one person who vows to never purchase their product, 10 others become useful leads.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  Yes, but for every person I tell that they had a data breach causing them to phish their customers through calendar, I can poison 50 people in each organization, then they can poison 50 and so forth... let's call it exponential growth of the DELL-20 coronavirus.
  - malux85 6y ago
    And each of those 10 successes tells 50, Don’t you get it?! They wouldn’t do it if it didn’t work, and you are vastly outnumbered. It’s not right, it’s bloody annoying, but it’s there and it’s not going away. Google needs to fix the root problem, so that the spammy behaviour is not possible.
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
      I'm not claiming that you're wrong because I don't have any data to the contrary, but "They wouldn’t do it if it didn’t work" isn't a strong argument. It's only true assuming rational actors and perfect information. It is quite possible that the successes are more visible than the failures and thus it seems like it works. Or it "works" for the sales rep because he gets more leads and thus a bigger bonus, while hurting the company - but the company hasn't figured that out yet. Or it works in the short term but isn't worth the reputation damage in the long term. Of course it's also possible that it just works, just pointing out that reality shows that people and companies often do things that are just stupid.

Simulacra 6y ago

We had someone try this at a company I worked at previously. The target was so angry they aggressively complained; the company fired the salesman. It boggles the mind why a sales person would do something that is likely to be seen as an invasion to the prospect.

dreamcompiler 6y ago
> It boggles the mind why a sales person would do something that is likely to be seen as an invasion to the prospect. Sales droids don't think the same way regular people do. A lot of them really believe everybody is as extroverted as they are and introverts are just pretending. And that everybody would be as excited about their product as they are, if they only knew about it. The best sales people can adopt the point of view of their prospects; mediocre ones cannot.
- rpeden 6y ago
  That really hasn’t been my experience when working alongside sales people at the companies I’ve worked for. I definitely wouldn’t call any of them sales droids. Usually they’re just given really tough goals and quotas to hit. And while none of the salespeople I’ve worked with would book unsolicited appointments, I could see it happening at companies who don’t have a very mature sales org and just throw their account managers to the sharks and expect them to make it rain. From experience, I suspect that most salespeople who resort to invasive tactics really don’t expect everybody to be excited about their product. They are just desperately trying to keep their heads above water to avoid getting fired - a very human, non droid like thing to do. That doesn’t excuse it, of course.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    That really hasn’t been my experience when working alongside sales people at the companies I’ve worked for. I'll outweigh your anecdote with mine, because the only two companies where I had to work with sales people, in both places the sales people were exactly as the parent described. One cheated on his bride-to-be just to make a sale.