Unwanted Solicitations vs. Doing Business

Over the past few days, I've gotten a few emails from people on BiggerPockets that I do not know.  Each of these emails was a solicitation -- emails promoting real estate deals -- despite the fact that I NEVER opened the door with them to send such messages, never signed up for their email list, and never made a real connection to. 

These emails were nothing but spam.

With that in mind, I'd like to make some things clear:

If you send unsolicited emails or PMs to people on our site, you are acting in violation of our Terms of Service, and your account will be closed.

Some people will read that to say that you can't do business on our site.  As many thousands of you can attest, that is simply not true.

THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPAM AND BUSINESS!

If you've established a relationship with someone and in doing so, they have have given you permission to send them messages or emails about deals you've got, that is perfectly acceptable, and we encourage it!  Real estate is almost 100% a relationship business.  If you think you're going to be effective by annoying people, you're dead wrong. 

If you do not have the permission of the other party to solicit them with deals, you are merely sending SPAM.

Introduce yourself.  Get to know others in the business -- both here and elsewhere -- and once you've done so, and have asked the other party for their permission to send them info about your deals, business, etc., then would be a great time to do so.  

Otherwise, you're merely being an annoyance!

The CAN-SPAM Act

We strongly recommend you all familiarize yourselves with the CAN-SPAM Act.  This act was established to protect consumers from UCE (unsolicited commercial emails).  

Conclusion

I want to be clear.  BiggerPockets is here so you can connect with one another and do real deals, however, you MUST do so without SPAMMING.  It is an annoyance and we won't allow such behavior.

I've actually had many conversations over the years, with members who tell me that one of the best things about our site is that people don't have to stress out that they are going to deal with a ton of spam like they do on other sites.  I take that as a huge compliment!  I actually get a fair amount of mail from people who think we suck for the same reason, but I'm sure you can tell that I'm not bothered by these -- they can annoy people on another website.

I welcome a discussion about this topic . . . thanks for listening!