I never thought about it as spam, but I guess it really is. Having lived around cities (SF and DC) with a large poor population, I’ve found that (especially in DC) you often get the sales pitch when all they want are a couple of bucks. Having grown up in Chicago, where people begging for money tended to do it while playing music, I always found the story line a bit much. Like, “Sorry, but the book deal went to the last guy.” Just say what you want!

I think what you described is a very disturbing trend.

We already are seeing a decay in people interacting with each other on a day-to-day basis already for many reasons (fear, internet, not taking public transportation, etc) and now you have to guard yourself against innocent discussions with strangers for fear that they might be hustling you.

I saw a story awhile back about people being hired to stand around in Times Square and ask strangers to take their picture. When the stranger obliged, the person would thank them for taking his/her picture, and then launch into an “impromptu” raving of what a great Canon/Sony/Kodak he had, start showing off the features and before the stranger knew it, he was in the middle of a sales pitch!

Of course, this is what some call “viral marketing” which I guess gives it sound of legitimacy, instead of calling it what it really is - Harrasment. And it gives advertising a bad name.

My experience during a recent trip to IKEA.

“Hey, do you work at Oracle.” “No, why?” “Oh, my company has been doing some work with them and I thought you looked familiar.”

Being new to Silicon Valley, I’m always trying to make whatever contacts I can…

“Oh, what do you do?” “[Some stuff I didn’t understand through his thick Indian accent] What do you do?” “I’m a Web Designer at a startup.”

Somehow we end up exchanging business cards (mistake), everyone in Silicon Valley has some sort of project going, and who knows when I’ll need to find something new to work on?

A couple days later I get a call from him. He wants to meet for lunch. I’m a bit busy, so I want to get the gist of what he does and I don’t think its necessary for us to meet. He tells me it’s company policy that they don’t discuss what they do over the phone or e-mail. I tell him I’m too busy to meet. “But you are looking for extra income, aren’t you?” No. I tell him I’ll give him a call if I’m ever looking for something.

So this guy has a great business opportunity, and he can’t give me the smallest clue as to what the hell they do? I look like someone familiar to him who works at Oracle? Yeah right.

Most likely it was some pyramid scheme much like what was pitched to you. I had some friends in High School who were all over a similar operation called “Quixtar.” None of them made a cent, of course. I can’t knock on the “personal spamming” technique, but I’ll be wiser in avoiding it in the future.

ChrisM70, you’re right—people hardly talk anymore. When my wife and I are grocery shopping, and are discussing the postive/negative points of one product over another, and we actually open up the discussion to the people listening nearby, they love it! It’s like their own personal recommendation service, hosted by me. Now I don’t make any effort to do this on a regular basis, but every time after our short conversation is over, I guardedly think “wow, I should be getting paid for this.” But I don’t want to work in sales.

The Starbucks thing? Amazing. And polite. And that’s the difference.

Yeah, hand out coupons. THAT would be nice. As long as it didn’t slow traffic.