someones using my domain name

M4RKM

bookduck wrote: »

End customers and users are allowed to disciminate, and often do everytime we purchase a product! Just it tends to be the worst, of the worst that have these, also they often never give out a phone number or at best an 0870 type number.

Sorry you do not like to hear this, but I bet there are more like me out there!

you really are opinionated..

Ok.. i run a business, and in the past had a contact form, my address, and an 0870 number on my website

i'm not the worst of the worst, i'm still running my business, but the reason i used an 0870, is that it was a forwarding number, that forwarded to my home phone number. yes.. suprisingly, i was a business running from home.

now, the last thing i need is my home phone number to be there, which can't be turned off, or timed not to ring and go to a voicemail system.

however, the 0870 number can..

it doesn't matter anyway.. you'll never want my services... and i now have a shiny 0113 number on my website, thanks to the wonder of VOIP

kwikbreaks

bookduck wrote: »

End customers and users are allowed to disciminate, and often do everytime we purchase a product! Just it tends to be the worst, of the worst that have these, also they often never give out a phone number or at best an 0870 type number.

Sorry you do not like to hear this, but I bet there are more like me out there!

I personally don't care what your prejudices may be. I'm just surprised that you you avoid using well known web retailers such as Amazon who use web forms rather than splashing their email all over their pages for spambots to harvest.

save-a-lot

bookduck wrote: »

Sunshine54, I never trust companies or do business with contact forms. They always remind me of those viagra, or watch sellers. Come to think of it there is probably no real reason not to, but just feels wrong, nasty, faceless and cheap - a bit like a medium to large company having a hotmail account?

Just my take on it though?

Contact forms are the norm. Having your email address on the page is suicide in terms of receiving spam to your inbox. I would only ever show my email address on my websites if it was on the page as an image, and only as an image, not with a mailto link behind it. People would have to physically copy the email address into their mail software.

save-a-lot

markymoo wrote: »

However, you state it seems wrong, nasty, faceless and cheap, well actually it's a lot more expensive to create a contact form, that it is to type an email address..

No it is not. I use PHP contact form that was free. I cannot find the original link, but just google'd PHP contact form:

http://www.tele-pro.co.uk/scripts/contact_form/

looks ok, will try it myself.

RobTang

for bigger companies I really doupt the contact forms link to email anyway.

They would most likley patch into their CRM system, which would generate ticket / support numbers etc and then would be allocated to whoever on the customer support team.

more complex forms can direct the user to informaion/faqs as well, (simple questionaires / NLP system) generally saving everyones time. they are useful handy tools. and pretty much everyone uses them

bookduck

[QUOTE=markymoo;21419665..... well actually it's a lot more expensive to create a contact form, that it is to type an email address..
M[/QUOTE]

I agree with save-a-lot, as it should be much cheaper in compared to an actual email account especially if you are hosted on a linux box - have a look here http://www.ibdhost.com/contact/
and another free one just incase
http://www.flash-template-design.com/flash_php_contact_form.php

M4RKM

ok ok.. maybe i was wrong to say it is much more expensive, as you've all taken it in a monetary term, but to type

myemail@mydomain.com takes all of 5 seconds and doesn't take much technical ability, and the "cost" as such comes in creating a contact form, linking it to a php/asp script (or cgi in the old days), is probably the time.

we all know that time is money people!

so if it takes 5 seconds, compared to 10 minutes, that is still a difference, so therefore costs more! (time or money)

and hang on a minute? you're just advocating the use of contact forms, rather than an email address, but before you said

Originally Posted by bookduck
Sunshine54, I never trust companies or do business with contact forms.

flip flopping much?

save-a-lot

markymoo wrote: »

ok ok.. maybe i was wrong to say it is much more expensive, as you've all taken it in a monetary term, but to type

myemail@mydomain.com takes all of 5 seconds and doesn't take much technical ability, and the "cost" as such comes in creating a contact form, linking it to a php/asp script (or cgi in the old days), is probably the time.

we all know that time is money people!

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
so if it takes 5 seconds, compared to 10 minutes, that is still a difference, so therefore costs more! (time or money)
:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

and hang on a minute? you're just advocating the use of contact forms, rather than an email address, but before you said



flip flopping much?

Eh... time is money -- what, 5 seconds, or 10 minutes, it is a one off event when creating your website and means that you either receive and attract more spam or don't... so I think those 10 minutes is well invested.

anuvidy

You won't know for sure if the email came from your domain unless you check the headers on the email. Typically the spammers make it look like it's from your domain to get past your spam protection.

isofa

I've had a commercial website since 1997, (and other websites before then in 1993) I've been using contact forms since around 1998 time too - I work in IT (run an IT company among others) and it is impossible to find an e-mail address on my site this is totally deliberate - I would never advertise my e-mail address as plain text anywhere. This doesn't affect anyone, in my experience. New customers can contact direct via the form, which is passed by a secure PHP script and then forwarded out to an account. It logs the persons IP and ensures they type a valid e-mail address, enter the required fields etc. All my actual clients have full e-mail, contact, telephone etc, so I can't see the issue. Real clients contact me directly via phone/e-mail, potential ones have to use a form, unless they have obviously been recommended by a colleague (which accounts for the majority of our business). Business is successful, never had any issue with this approach.

By law you must publicised your company address on your website (was only for Ltd companies, but could even be for sole traders now too), but I'm Ltd so have to. We get virtually no spam, except for a few wasters who occasionally go to the site and go through the form entry procedure, but it's filtered out by anti-spam anyway.