Hello New Jersey County Mailing List Listowners,
I am the listowner for the Middlesex and Essex County Mailing lists. In
the past few weeks you have read messages from Diane Ward Sives and myself
about a person who is using our mailing lists for his business purposes.
Today that problem has risen again and I believe that each one of you has
now been used for his business purposes. The person I am talking about is
Geoffrey Cooper. He originally went under the AOL handle of "EatFish1".
The problem is explained below:
After subscribing to the Middlesex and Essex County Mailing lists a few
weeks back, Geoffrey Cooper immediately started to advertise his business.
He has been asked three times to be listed on the Middlesex and Essex
County Web Sites as a paid researcher (as well as the counties that Diane
administers). The first time he refused stating that he has too many
requests already and doesn't need any new ones. The remaining times he
failed to respond at all.
The other day a question was asked on the Essex County Mailing list about
why the death records from the State had the cause of death blacked out.
Geoffrey Cooper responded with his EatFish1 handle by stating that the
records were available elsewhere, but gave no listing of where they may be,
only his advertisement for his paid lookup services. The implication was
that if you paid him he would get you the certificates without the cause of
death blacked out.
I immediately sent him an email asking him to cease that sort of response,
repost his message with a proper reply and to remove his advertisement,
which is against RootsWeb policy, from his signature line. Needless to say
he never responded to me. This morning he added a new AOL handle,
NJRecords, to his AOL account, and spammed ALL New Jersey mailing lists
that I am subscribed to. I can only assume that he did it to the other
ones that I am not subscribed to.
I was on-line at the time and after reading the AOL user profiles for
EatFish1 and NJRecords, I confronted him (NJRecords) on AOL. He denied
being Eatfish1, even though the user profiles of both of them, had many
similarities with no differences. When confronted with that information he
said that he would unsubscribe from my lists. I told him that I had
already unsubscribed him and put him on the reject list for violating
RootsWeb policy and not returning my many emails to him regarding this
violation. At which time the conversation ended. Less than an hour later
he resubscribed using a different AOL handle, this time it was NJLookups.
I immediately unsubscribed him and I will now report him to AOL as a spammer.
My problem with him is, of course, his using the Mailing Lists for his
business. I would assume that he will now monitor the lists and send
personal email to people who ask questions on the lists, offering his
services. As I stated above, I have asked him on three different occasions
to be listed on the Middlesex and Essex County Web Sites as a paid
researcher with his proper name, Geoffrey Cooper. Why would he refuse that
offer, stating that he already had too much business, BUT continue to ask
for business on all of OUR mailing lists?
For those reasons stated above, I consider him a shady person who cannot be
trusted to do any type of research for money. I have put all three of his
AOL handles on my reject lists and made sure each one is unsubbed from the
lists to protect my list subscribers.
It is unfortunate that a person who could do some good for the mailing list
subscribers would resort to this type of behavior but I have tried time and
time again to reason with him. His response each time is either a lie or
no response.
Thanks you for your time.
Glenn G. Geisheimer glenng(a)castle.net
Middlesex County, NJ Genealogy:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~njmiddle/
Essex County, NJ Genealogy:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~njessex/
Virtual Newark, NJ:
http://www.castle.net/~glenng/newark/newark.htm
Unknown County
http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/NJ/Unknown