SPAM, LIES AND FAKE REPORTERS
Steve Hardigree and Opt In Inc. Uncovered

Who is Steve Hardigree?

Those who have been involved in the world of permission based e-mail marketing, often used in conjunction with terms like opt-in, confirmed opt-in, double opt-in, opt-out etc., have no doubt come across the name of Opt In Inc. or the president of Opt In Inc., Charles "Steve" Hardigree. He is a somewhat well known figure and has been featured in many on-line pieces about spamming (the act of sending unsolicited opt-out e-mail) as well as more respectable publications about opt-in marketing. Note that his given name is actually Charles, but for some reason he goes with the name Steve in public.

Is he really a spammer?

It is no secret that Steve Hardigree has been involved in spamming before. This much he has admitted in a article titled Day in the life of a spammer. The piece covers Hardigree's background and business, and establishes that it was he who set up eDirect, the most notorious of the Florida spamgangs. More recently Steve Hardigree has claimed to have given up his career in spamming with eDirect and moved to opt-in only with his new Opt In Inc. This page aims to debunk his claims of opt-in and show the world that Steve Hardigree has not changed his ways and is still capable of despicable attacks against those who dare criticize him.

What about when says he does opt-in only?

When Steve Hardigree speaks of opt-in what he actually means is more like targeted opt-out than real opt-in. Nobody knows why, but many prominent anti-spammers who would never in a million years opt-in to Steve Hardigree's feeble sweepstake offers somehow started receiving confirmations of opting in to Opt In Inc.'s spam lists. It is possible someone forge subscribed them, but more likely explanation is that Opt In Inc. don't care where the addresses come from as long as they can plausibly deny any connection to spamming by repeatedly claiming the recipient must have opted-in, yadda yadda yadda.

Here is a sample spam sent by Opt In Inc.:

Return-Path: 
Received: from cac3.hub.mail.psi.ca ([154.11.168.213])
          by tomts6-srv.bellnexxia.net
          (InterMail vM.4.01.03.16 201-229-121-116-20010115) with
ESMTP
          id
<20011212043156.BFXT20994.tomts6-srv.bellnexxia.net@cac3.hub.mail.psi.ca>
          for ; Tue, 11 Dec 2001 23:31:56 -0500
Received: from mx1.smtp.psi.ca ([154.11.137.34])
by cac3.hub.mail.psi.ca with esmtp (Exim 2.05 #1)
id 16E10H-0007CS-00
for xxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx; Tue, 11 Dec 2001 23:28:21 -0500
Received: from lsmail4.oii1.net ([65.212.106.123])
by mx1.smtp.psi.ca with esmtp (Exim 3.13 #3)
id 16DyrU-0005Y6-02
for xxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx; Tue, 11 Dec 2001 21:11:09 -0500
Received: from lsmail1 (208.254.217.79) by lsmail4.oii1.net (LSMTP for
Windows NT v1.1b) with SMTP id <63.00000617@lsmail4.oii1.net>; Tue, 11
Dec 2001 19:17:36 -0500
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 18:47:58 -0500
From: The Opt in Network 
Subject: Your confirmation, Xxxxx
To: xxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="06986E0E1E196312E032AFBC"
Message-Id: 


Dear xxxxx,

Within the last few weeks you received an introduction to your
membership in The Opt in Network. 

We welcome you to The Opt in Network and promise to commit
ourselves to delivering you a highly rewarding online experience
with offers that include discounts, bargains, special offers, and
sweepstakes, along with entertainment, travel and financial
opportunities. 

Let us extend a warm welcome by offering you a 3 day/2 night vacation
to either Las Vegas, NV, Orlando, FL, or Ft. Lauderdale, FL, at
one of the Ramada Inns or its affiliated properties. Click here to
cash
in your certificate and start planning your mini-vacation now.
http://www.opt-track.net/opt.asp?AD=5195&EM=83476171 

With its millions of subscribers, The Opt in Network has strong
negotiating power.  That's why only we can offer you exclusive deals
like this. When you receive mail from The Opt in Network, you know
it's worth opening. 

Again, welcome to The Opt in Network! 

Warmest regards, 

The Opt in Network
Subscriber Team 


**********************************************************************
If for some reason you choose not to participate in The Opt in Network
and get free and heavily discounted offers, click here:
http://optweb1.oihost.net/cpa/remove.jsp?email=xxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx
**********************************************************************

Many more can be found by browsing through the following links:

Opt In Inc. get involved with GreetKing
Spam complaints lodged against Opt In Inc.
Spamhaus Project ROKSO evidence file on Steve Hardigree

Needless the say, any company where Steve Hardigree is involved is rather badly mistrusted by the anti-spam community. However thanks to some good PR many publications have swallowed his stories and considered him as an honest opt-in player. Here is a list of various articles where he is mentioned:

Refusing to Remove me - The Customer Service Breakdown of an Email Marketing Company
Day in the Life of a Spammer
A Message from the Governor Breeds Political E-Mail Debate
Opt In Creates E-mail Unit

David Goldstein, the Freelance Reporter Extraordinaire

On 2002-01-25, after posting some rather inflamatory comments about Steve Hardigree's Opt In Inc. I received a note from someone calling themselves David Goldstein:

X-Originating-IP: [24.51.216.130]
From: "David Goldstein" <goldsteindirect@hotmail.com>
To: toni@nukespam.org
Subject: RE: OPT IN INC.
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:19:37 -0600
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 25 Jan 2002 15:19:38.0208 (UTC) FILETIME=[B414DE00:01C1A5B3]

Toni,

I am a free-lance reporter for several large Direct Marketing publications. 
I am currently working on a story of companies in the permission based email 
industry. One of which is OPT IN INC. a company owned and operated by Steve 
Hardigree.

Steve is a well respected DM veteran in the Direct Marketing community 
having been mention with strong regards for his advancements in the 
permission marketing world.

After reviewing several of your articles in DejaGoo it appears that you feel 
the contrary. Do you have any information that would assist me in providing 
the DM community with information. Your name will remain anonymous.

If you prefer a phone call let me know. Otherwise please reply via email.

Sincerely,

David Goldstein

The IP address from where this was posted belongs to a cable modem provider who provides service in, among other places, Boca Raton, FL. The lie about Steve Hardigree being a respected veteran made me suspicious, but I decided to respond to this alleged reporter anyway:

From: "Toni Lassila" <toni@nukespam.org>
To: goldsteindirect@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: OPT IN INC.
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002

At 09:19 25.1.2002 -0600, David Goldstein wrote:
>I am a free-lance reporter for several large Direct Marketing publications. 
>I am currently working on a story of companies in the permission based email 
>industry. One of which is OPT IN INC. a company owned and operated by Steve 
>Hardigree.
>
>Steve is a well respected DM veteran in the Direct Marketing community 
>having been mention with strong regards for his advancements in the 
>permission marketing world.

I trust you have already read the articles about him that appear on
the web. While Hardigree poses as an opt-in player, his idea of opt-in
is quite twisted. Apparently it consists of sending unsolicited offers
to join a sweepstake (he doesn't consider these spam). The most recent
Hardigree spammed business is BigIdeals.com/SweepsClub.com.

He consistently lies in his mailings about the recipient opting in.
I believe most of his opt-ins come from heavily cleaned spam lists
or customer opt-in lists that he is sending to. He then takes the addresses
from those customer lists and transfers them to his own lists, then sells
them on.

>After reviewing several of your articles in DejaGoo it appears that you feel 
>the contrary. Do you have any information that would assist me in providing 
>the DM community with information. Your name will remain anonymous.

I know of a recent case where a dot-com called WinDough.com outsourced
their e-mail marketing to eDirect (a joint Eddie Marin and Steve Hardigree
operation, look up the Florida Record of Corporations to verify). It
appears eDirect took their in-house list and sold it on for other clients
as a "verified opt-in list", resulting in much spam being sent to
WinDough.com customers. Last I heard, WinDough.com was looking to file suit.
You might want to ask the people at WinDough.com for details.

This doesn't seem to be an isolated case. There was also a strong suspicion
that BigMailBox (a freemail provider) had somehow given their subscriber
list to someone associated with eDirect, which caused addresses registered
in the BigMailBox forwarding system to receive spam from eDirect. BMB denied
anything to do with eDirect. Do a DejaGoogle search for BigMailBox for
details. Then there was the debacle with Juno, where Juno hired Hardigree to
do marketing for them and they ended up having to pull the campaign because
they discovered SH was spamming.

If you have time I will tap a few information sources for more concrete
evidence of Steve Hardigree's "opt-in" mailings to stolen lists.

To the best of my knowledge, all events described in my e-mail occurred as such. It seems as though "David Goldstein" didn't agree with my evidence:

X-Originating-IP: [209.149.9.225]
From: "David Goldstein" <goldsteindirect@hotmail.com>
To: toni@nukespam.org
Subject: RE: OPT IN INC.
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 12:27:13 -0600
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 25 Jan 2002 18:27:14.0214 (UTC) FILETIME=[E92F1460:01C1A5CD]

Mr. Lassila,

With all due respect to you and your investigation we know for a fact that 
Hardigree and/or his organization has nothing to do with eDirect.com, Inc., 
Windough.com, BigiDeals/SweepsClub, etc.. And please allow me time to 
elaborate.

Based on my investigation Hardigree sold eDirect.com as well as eData.com to 
a Hank Asher (former CEO of Database Technologies, - pulic company) in Dec. 
of 1999. As a matter of fact, and you are welcomed to investigate public 
records, Hardigree worked with Asher for three months and left because of 
disagreements with Asher about how eDirect should position itself in the 
Direct Marketing Community. Ultimately eDirect.com attempted to sue him and 
a settlement was reached. The afformentioned companies you mentioned are 
clients of eDirect not OPT IN INC.

Hardigree runs a successful company - OPT IN INC - that generates over 10 
million a year in revenues. Furthermore, we know that he manages data on 
behalf of 40+ database clients worldwide and has always mailed his 
promotions with valid headers, remove options, etc. He has over 1000 direct 
marketing clients and the respect of many people. I read your claims below 
and wonder how you draw such conclusions and slander him in the newsgroups.

Hardigree, despite allegations posted in Deja, is perhaps not the story I am 
looking for. Perhaps your organization and others like it should be 
exploited. It appears you hit easy targets who don't necessarily abide by 
your philosophies.

Mr. Hardigree has agreed to do a story with us and will allow us to speak 
with his customers and employees and discuss his business principals. Mr. 
Lassila I would like to speak with you personally. Do you have a number that 
I may contact you at?

Would you be willing to do this? I assure you that this article will receive 
international exposure.

Sincerely,

David Goldstein

At this point it was obvious that either this "reporter" had been bought or that I was discussing with Steve Hardigree himself. I declined to take it any further and told him to leave me out of any "articles":

From: "Toni Lassila" <toni@nukespam.org>
To: goldsteindirect@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: OPT IN INC.
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002

At 12:27 25.1.2002 -0600, David Goldstein wrote:
>Hardigree runs a successful company - OPT IN INC - that generates over 10 
>million a year in revenues. Furthermore, we know that he manages data on 
>behalf of 40+ database clients worldwide and has always mailed his 
>promotions with valid headers, remove options, etc. He has over 1000 direct 
>marketing clients and the respect of many people. I read your claims below 
>and wonder how you draw such conclusions and slander him in the newsgroups.

If Steve Hardigree wasn't a spammer, he would know that having valid
headers and remove options doesn't make him any less of a spammer.
And having the respect of spammers doesn't move me at all.

This matter is finished. Don't bother me again. You do NOT have permission
to mention my name or make any reference to me in any article, anywhere,
anytime. I do not want to have anything to do with your type of people.

This really annoyed him so he started the name calling:

X-Originating-IP: [209.149.9.225]
From: "David Goldstein" <goldsteindirect@hotmail.com>
To: toni@nukespam.org
Subject: RE: OPT IN INC.
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 15:51:35 -0600
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 25 Jan 2002 21:51:35.0472 (UTC) FILETIME=[75769300:01C1A5EA]

Congratulations Jerk! You will be mentioned in four different puclications 
as well as several internet forums. These articles will are scheduled to be 
ran in Feb, March, and April. Your name will be included, I assure you!

We have documented several other idiots like yourself from several so-called 
internet police organizations. Including the so-called lumber cartel. Please 
pass this on to your friends.

Again congratulations on making an ASS of yourself!

If you would like to sue us I would be more than happy to provide our 
corporate information.

Sincerely,

David Goldstein

Now, assume for a split second that "David Goldstein" is a real reporter. Would any respectable reporter launch an attack against someone, announcing he was going to write a defamatory piece about them without identifying his contact information or the paper he is writing for and get away with it?

It is pretty clear David Goldstein is in fact not a reporter of any kind, but either Steve Hardigree or someone involved with his spamming operation. There are at least two David Goldsteins in Florida, the other one in Boca Raton, FL, so it's always possible an actual David Goldstein actually exists.

I then decided to call his bluff:

From: "Toni Lassila" <toni@nukespam.org>
To: goldsteindirect@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: OPT IN INC.
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2002

At 15:51 25.1.2002 -0600, you wrote:
>If you would like to sue us I would be more than happy to provide our 
>corporate information.

OK, provide your corporate information.

Not surprisingly, he continued the name calling and refused to give out his contact information:

X-Originating-IP: [24.51.216.130]
From: "David Goldstein" <goldsteindirect@hotmail.com>
To: toni@nukespam.org
Subject: RE: OPT IN INC.
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 13:42:45 -0600
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 26 Jan 2002 19:42:45.0387 (UTC) FILETIME=[A062F5B0:01C1A6A1]

Tony (AKA JERK) I will be happy to provide you with my information. But I do 
believe I ask you for yours first. It appears that you and your lumber 
cartel cons fly in stealth mode.

Additionally, when you (AKA JERK) post in Deja I notice that you only 
included select portions of the email I sent you. Why not the entire 
message? Makes me wonder about your intentions.

Ironically you have assisted us in changing the focus of our story. So 
again, congratulations on making an ASS of yourself.

And by the way idiots like you improve Hardigree's image.. Don't you get it?

More to come, I assure you!

David Goldstein

For those uninitiated amongst the anti-spam community, the Lumber Cartel is a non-existant organization once rumoured to exist by some spammers that allegedly was funding all anti-spam efforts in order to stop e-mail marketing and move all e-mail marketers back to traditional junk mailing. It was picked up as an in-joke and is commonly used by anti-spammers in a humoristic context. I have a mention of it in my .sig, but apparently Steve Haridgree and his pack of reporters have no sense of humour when it comes to spam.

After this I decided to ignore "David Goldstein" and instead write this page as a information source for those who would do business with Steve Hardigree, or any of the following companies where he is involved:

Steve Hardigree Operations

Opt In Inc.
http://www.optininc.com/
14000 Military Trail, Suite 103
Delray Beach, FL 33428

Electronic Sweepstakes Co.
http://www.esweeps.com/
2101 NW Corporate Blvd., Suite 102
Boca Raton, FL 33431

MailRewards Inc.
21869 Palm Grass Dr.
Boca Raton, FL 33428