Let's examine this a bit.
It starts off with an E-mail you receive promising huge returns for the expenditure of a relatively small amount of money. Just think - for only $200 you can get your message out to a million people who are on the general subscriber list of AOL members.

"Wow" - you think - "even if I only get one half of one percent, that will be 5,000 customers". Now they also offer a " TARGETed" list of one million for $400. Advertisers in the know, say you can expect up to a 3 percent return from a targeted list - that's 30,000 customers.

They do the mailing and you won't have problems with your ISP (Internet Service Provider) who will cancel your account for spamming. How do they do this? Simple - they do not list your address in the copy they send out, and they use a "forged" address in the header. Try responding to any offer you receive and, most of the time it will be returned as undeliverable. These spammers usually provide a telephone number you can call, where you will get a pre-recorded bit of hype, and a message to send your money to their P.O. Box.

So what is a realistic response rate? Well folks don't start packing your bags for that vacation to Tahiti. The only people making any money with this are the people conning you into paying them to send out your E-mail. I have received numerous notes from people who told me they paid "big bucks" to these companies and didn't get ANY responses. I've also received reports from people who thought that a mailing was never made, even though they paid for it - how do you prove they didn't send it.

But wait there is an even better deal. You can get a CD with 15,000,000 addresses for only $199. "Now" you might think, "if I can 5,000-30,000 customers from one million, how many customers can I get with 15 million".

The first question I would have, is how are you going to send out your 15 million E-mails without having your ISP cancel your account. Most free ISP's put a limit of 50 E-mails you can send out at one time. Let's see 15 million divided by 50 would equal 300,000 mailings. Figure 20 minutes per mailing, it would take over 6 years, working 8 hours a day, to send a mailing to everyone on the list. Ever wonder how many of those addresses will be valid next month, let alone 6 years from now?

Does that mean you will have to wait 6 years before you can start packing your bags? Not hardly - there are some people whose main goal in life is get the E-mail accounts of spammers canceled. There is even software that makes the complaints automatically.

But you think, I have software that can send out many thousands at a time. Granted, but all this means is your account will be canceled by your ISP faster. Most keep "logs" of E-mail sent out, and examine the content of large mailings. If it is a commercial message - Bingo - You're Cancelled.