The only time we will ever publish something negative about a company is when the public is affected. This article serves as a warning and guide to help you get out of receiving unwanted communication from the company in question.
THE HISTORY:
Elan Property Group ran a competition in Decemober 2010. We quote: “Gateway Theatre of Shopping partnered with the eLan Property Group in a December 2010 competition offered a prize of a R1-million plot of land at Blythedale Coastal Resort”.
All you needed to do is complete a form with your personal details to qualify for the prize draw. But… it’s actaully a bit of a SCAM-like scenario. They don’t actually have to give you the property thanks to one-sided terms and conditions that you overlook when you enter. That’s understandable. You are so excited about the chance to win the prize that you don’t bother with the small print. You just want that piece of land worth R1-million. It’s got to be true. Well, it’s NOT. If you would like to know more, CLICK HERE to read what Brian Aberdeen, the winner of the R1-million plot, has to say. We quote: “PEOPLE told me winning this competition would change my life, and it did. Only it was for the worse.”
THE DOWN SIDE:
Yes you had a chance to win this property (or win it but NOT as Brian Aberdeen found out) but you have just shared your information with Elan Property Group.
So what do they do with this information?
Elan Property Group wants to sell you their properties and the cheapest and fastest way to try and do this is to send you newsletters. So you think OK, I entered the competition and got this newsletter but let’s unsubscribe and it’s over… well it’s NOT.
One of our email accounts and people we know still receive newsletters (called SPAM when you have already previously tried to unsubscribe) from Elan Property Group despite numerous attempts to unsubscribe. The link at the bottom is hidden (or not even visible on some) and does not work, sometimes it does but there is no point as you still get the newsletters even after submitting the unsubscribe request. We know this because we have tried ourselves a number of times over the years. We have even invested some money by paying our technical guys to email them and their provider, Rackspace, but also to no avail… we are still receiving SPAM from them.
Most of the time we and others don’t get any response on the emails sent to request removal but if we do get a response it contains the same tone of, “sorry and we have now removed you” like the last email we received:
/// EMAIL FROM Adre-B van Wyk at Elan Property Group ///
On 27 November 2012 08:13, Andre-B van Wyk <andreb@elan.co.za> wrote:
Dear Editor
Thank you for your e-mail.
Apologies that the mail was sent to you. We have recently changed our mail server and by some unknown reason, the system added you back to the mailing list – but we have now removed you again.
No spam strategy has been formulated, nor implemented as we communicate property news to members of our mailing list.
We apologise once again for the error.
Regards
/// END //
So today on the 27/02/2013 we received another much loved SPAM newsletter from Elan Property Group titled: ” Investor Club Update”.
WARNING and ADVICE:
- DO NOT give any of your contact or personal information to Elan Property Group.
- If you already fell into the trap and you are receiving SPAM from Elan Property Group;
– email abuse@rackspace.com (their host/email provider) and let them know you are receiving SPAM from them.
– report them at www.spamcop.net
– and email info@elan.co.za and let them know how you feel (be nice and objective) but don’t expect any response from them.
We hope that by publishing this article we can help prevent others from getting onto a database where they will be unable to get their details removed from.
The unlucky individuals (like us, SA PROMO Magazine) who are already on the Elan Property Group database, we would like to hear about your experience so please CONTACT US!
