This page has been changed from the original, in response to legal threat by Appleton Greene & Co. (hereinafter known as
AGC). It is reposted in support of a US Federal Trade Commission filing. What remains is a fair and accurate record of AGC’s communications when recruiting consultants, with comment on how they might infringe the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, as seen by a lay individual. This represents fair comment, protected under the principles of freedom of expression.Date20.08.2023Changes
- removed the name of AGC’s employee who spammed me
- comments on aspects of AGC’s email use that may contravene the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 are highlighted: specifically, (a) the use of false and misleading
Fromheaders, (b) changing theFromheader, thus circumventing sender-based block rules, while theReply-Toheader remained consistent, and (c) the sending of commercial messages without notice of advertisementDate15.09.2023Changesubstituted AGC’s full company name, other than where it appears in direct quotations (communications, email headers etc.).
Appleton Greene & Co. is a niche corporate training provider
offering standard and bespoke training programs for corporate clients
. They contacted me as part of an unsolicited marketing outreach campaign. This is not the first contact that I’ve received from them.
According to their disclaimer, I originally subscribed to receiving information from Appleton Greene
, which is an outrageous lie. The implication that I’d simply forgotten doing so is similarly outrageous. I do not remember doing this
, for the simple reason that I didn’t do it. And I didn’t do it, for the even simpler reasons that (1) I’d never heard of AGC before their unsolicited, and unwanted, marketing outreach
, and (2) I have no interest in the services they provide.
Besides, isn’t the disclaimer rather contradicted by their admission that they’d identified me from my professional profile online? As for my kind interest in Appleton Greene
, I’ve never had any.
The point of this post is to note that the contents of their email may not be disclosed, copied or distributed without the prior written consent of Appleton Greene & Co Global Limited
, and then to do just that. After all, how can you hold a recipient to such a clause, when they’ve not first undertaken to abide by it through a signed and binding confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement? You can’t, especially when your communication is unsolicited commercial email sent to a complete stranger who hasn’t accepted an opt-in commitment. As for the email possibly being subject to legal privilege
, legal privilege applies to a legal adviser and their client, not to a spammer and their victim; there is no legal relationship between AGC and I. Furthermore, despite me being the named recipient, this is clearly a template document that is sent to everyone on AGC’s harvested shitlist.
From: Appleton Greene & Co <[email protected]>
Reply-To: Appleton Greene & Co <[email protected]>
Subject: Proposed Telephone Appointment with [snip]
Buried in the HTML code lay this tracking pixel:
<img alt="" src="http://tracking.appletongreene.email/tracking/open?msgid=[snip]" style="width:1px;height:1px">Here we have two potential contraventions of the CAN-SPAM Act.
Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.
Federal Trade Commission, CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business
In this communication, the From header is given as [email protected]. It is not the same as the Reply-To header, it is not even the same domain as the Reply-To header, and it does not accurately identify the company.
Identify the message as an ad. The law gives you a lot of leeway in how to do this, but you must disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an advertisement.
Federal Trade Commission, CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business
This communication purports to be an outreach for consultant recruitment. However, they cannot know that the recipient is aware of the company and what it does—because email addresses were not obtained by opt-in methods, if my experience is anything to go by—therefore they have to make them aware. Furthermore, they offer consultant employment in exchange for training, for which they charge tuition and service fees. The proposal represents a commercial transaction, and consequently this communication is advertising, but at no point does it clearly and conspicuously
disclose that it’s an ad.
Athough not specifically mentioned as a contravention of the Act in the compliance guide, the use of an invisible
tracking pixel image is a characteristic of spam messages; it’s specific to the recipient and is hosted on a remote server to indicate that an email has been opened. There is absolutely no need for such a device in standard communications. The domain for that image, appletongreene.email, differs from those in the headers.
Update
26.04.2022 11:57 UTC+02:00
From: Appleton Greene & Co <[email protected]>
Reply-To: Appleton Greene & Co <[email protected]>
Subject: Proposed Telephone Appointment with [snip]This is at least the second message that I’ve received from AGC in the intervening seven weeks. It appears that the company is not beyond changing, or falsifying, its mail From header to circumvent simple block sender rules. I am fully aware that AGC offers an unsubscribe link in their communications, but this is a common method used by spammers to verify live
. It’s the reason that many people rely on sender-based block rules instead. AGC appears to be attempting to sidestep them.
Here we have another potential contravention of the CAN-SPAM Act.
Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.
Federal Trade Commission, CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business
The From header gives the name of the company in the domain name, but it’s different to that in the Reply-To header and it’s different to those used previously, which is why it ended up in my inbox.
Update
24.05.2022 10:23 UTC+02:00
A thing of beauty is a joy forever. This, on the other hand…
The unexpurgated email is available to the FTC or other agencies by request.
From: Appleton Greene & Co <[email protected]>
Reply-To: Appleton Greene & Co <[email protected]>
Subject: Proposed Telephone Appointment with [snip]Yet another solicitation from AGC has appeared in my inbox, despite having added previous sender addresses to my junk senders list, by the simple expedient of changing the From header.
Here we have another potential contravention of the CAN-SPAM Act.
Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.
Federal Trade Commission, CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business
The From header gives the name of the company in the domain name, but it’s different to that in the Reply-To header. This time, appletongreenemailing.com doesn’t even resolve to the company’s domain.
Until now, I’d ignored AGC’s spam, other than to add the sender to my senders block list, and post whatever here. But now I responded.
Date: Tue, 24 May 2022 09:55:45 +0200rSubject: Re: Proposed Telephone Appointment with [snip]rTo: Appleton Greene & Co <[email protected]>
Addendum
16.08.2023 22:45 UTC+02:00
Lawyering up
It’s been over a year, and I’d completely forgotton about AGC, until today when Shubha Nath of Nath Solicitors Ltd entered my inbox. Apparently, they’re social media lawyers
, AGC is their
client, and she’s sent me a threatening demand—the thinly-veiled intimidatory nature of which only served to piss me off—to cease defamation
of said client and take down my post.
Ironically, it wasn’t until reading the order attached to Ms Nath’s missive that I even considered her client’s communications behaviour in relation to the CAN-SPAM Act. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep AGC’s emails; I simply abstracted what I needed at the time. This record will have to suffice.
Bullshit reviews
But these events did persuade me to look into AGC’s reputation through online reviews. They hold an enviable 5/5 average rating on Verified Reviews, from 156 five-star ratings and five four-star ratings, with none of three-stars or lower, dating back to 29.08.2021. That’s 161 delighted customers in a period of just two years, and no duds. These folks are clearly hitting it outta the park, and I was a fool to turn them down. [cough]
Let’s look at those oh-so-desirable five-star reviews. Such as this one, from Carlos A.
Some of them sound like personal references scraped from LinkedIn, and all of the four-star reviews were posted on the same day (31.08.2021). I’m not saying that they’re fake per se, just that they appear fake adjacent
.
Trustpilot is a little more revealing. With an average rating of 4.1 from seventeen reviews since 05.02.2022, twelve are five-star, three are one-star, and two seem to be missing. There are no reviews with ratings between two and four stars. The one-star reviews complain of AGC’s shady predatory practices; use of different email From headers to circumvent simple sender-based block rules; and take-down orders. Just as I’ve documented here.
Aleksandr Oreshkin seems to have had similar experience to mine, including contact from AGC’s solicitor today. This is just part of his review:
Edit3 8/16/23:
After making factual and demonstrably true statements Appleton Greene has hired a company called “nathsolicitors” working with the Law Offices of Stephen Goldstein to intimidate and further harass me for exercising my human right of free speech claiming that my conduct has caused “considerable embarrassment, anxiety and distress”. I find this laughable as it is Appleton Greene that is harassing me! And even after I have told them to stop harassing me they continued to do so! They are further attempting to intimidate me by citing laws of jurisdictions to which I do not belong.
They have demanded that I:
1. immediately delete all defamatory statements made online whether on the Blog, or anywhere else, and any other content identified in this letter.
2. undertake in writing that you will not post any more defamatory statements online regarding our client, or otherwise repeat any of the words complained of in any other way and via any other medium or encourage others to do so. I will be doing neither. Instead, in response to these threats, I will make public these issues on further platforms.
They further make the threat that if I do not delete my review they will “commence proceedings to include an injunction and a Claim for damages for loss incurred by our client”.
I WILL NOT BE DELETING MY REVIEW. I WILL INSTEAD WRITE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR COMPANY.
Aleksandr Oreshkin, Trustpilot
According to another, anonymous reviewer: These guys just will not stop spamming me – whenever I block one email they use a different email to get through – the sign of a true spammer.
To which AGC replied: We have no interest in sending information to anyone who does not want to receive it.
Oh, really? If that’s the case, then why persistently circumvent sender block rules with fake and misleading From headers? Nah, I’m gonna have to call bullshit on that one.
AGC’s registered address is given as Grand Cayman.
Update
14.09.2023 19:43 UTC+02:00
I’ve received another letter from Nath Solicitors Ltd, demanding that this blog post be taken down. They go on to claim that I deliberately used their client’s name over 20 times in your Blog
to boost its Google indexing, asserting that Adding their name so many times demonstrates clear malice on your part and should proceedings become necessary this will be drawn to the attention of the court.
That is pure speculation in the cause of intimidation and vexatious litigation.
I did not deliberately use their client’s name for the purpose of SEO, but for the sake of clear communication. There was no malice on my part. I have no idea how Google’s search algorithm works—AFAIK, it’s kept confidential to prevent it being manipulated—and I really don’t care how it works because this is just a personal blog that no one, outside a select litigious few, is ever likely to read; it’s not monetised; I make no effort to influence its search engine index; it’s not part of a wider blogging platform or community; and I write it solely for my own amusement. Still, there’s an easy fix, if necessary: substitute their client’s name with an alias, [The Company]
or somesuch.
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2023 19:29:29 +0200rSubject: Re: Please See Attached rTo: info <[email protected]>
Update
15.09.2023 12:53 UTC+02:00
Index schmindex.
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2023 12:50:48 +0200
Subject: Re: Please See Attached
To: info <[email protected]>Update
15.09.2023 19:59 UTC+02:00
All’s well that ends well.
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2023 19:57:28 +0200
Subject: Re: Please See Attached
To: info <[email protected]>
Addendum
16.09.2023 12:15 UTC+02:00
Rounding things out, let’s look at those [cough] Verified Reviews
, which first appeared in August 2021.
One thing that struck me about the reviews after 2021—which was a whole different kettle of fish—is that they don’t appear singly and consistently, as might be expected from spontaneous customer feedback, but sporadically in twos or threes, and immediately after the experience. Furthermore, when there was more than one review posted on a given day, the difference from the experience date didn’t vary. I’d expect fewer reviews per day; less variation between days when reviews were posted; and more variation in the delay between the experience and the review being posted.
August and September 2021 were clearly a very busy time for AGC’s reviewers. Not only that, but thirty-eight of the reviews from this period included one of the following links to AGC’s website (I’ve truncated the URL):
Curiously, only two reviews shared the same URL, all the others were unique. I think it’s strange that clients would include an URL in the first place; the fact that, with one exception, they all chose a different one beggars belief. It almost looks like an effort to game the search engines, dontchathink? And that’s ironic, given Nath Solicitors’ false accusation that I included AGC’s name multiple times in this post in order to boost its search engine index.
Then there’s the nature of the reviews
, many of which sound more like marketing blurb, personal references, or extracts from curricula vitae than genuine client feedback related to AGC per se. These are all five-star reviews; but what’s being reviewed, and by whom?
My work with this community hospital foundation has focused on board development, fundraising campaign support, and communication strategies. I was initially retained to conduct a community assessment regarding the foundation’s communication with their supporters and the community at large. The foundation staff wanted feedback from the community as to perceptions of the foundation’s effectiveness prior to launching a large fundraising campaign for the hospital the foundation supports. Based on feedback from the community assessment, my work continued with the foundation in a training capacity for the foundation board of directors. I worked with them to provide clarity as to their role in fundraising for the organization, as well as giving them tools and training to actively participate in large-scale philanthropy associated with the fundraising campaign. They are on track to reach their fundraising goal of $4.4M by June 30, 2021.
ALAN H.
As a Material Consultant, he was responsible for creating and updating supplier releases, ensuring on time delivery of production material, and supplier performance. In his role as a SAP Consultant, he played an instrumental role in transitioning legacy processes and procedures to the SAP environment and developing the SAP cycle process for the plant. Additionally, he effectively scheduled and managed the daily cycle count process, coordinating the activities of 4 cycle checkers across a 24×7 operation. He was always willing to offer his assistance and had an excellent rapport with the many constituents served by Production Control & Logistics, including production, suppliers, material handling, and other stake holders. I would highly recommend him
WILHELM B.
I had consulting positions in several parts of Energy industry: in oil & gas downstream; in electrical renewable generation; electrical distribution in various entities – industrial, public buildings, city streets, hotels; and maintenance, in regions mainly under European legislation, but also such with US and UK codes, and Russian standards. As a part of the worldwide trend of development of C02 free energy, I managed a project in wind park generation, building energy saving projects, street lighting projects, city traffic control, etc., those changed positively many environments and lives. My experience helps me to recognize the importance of the energy projects to the societies, in countries where the people lack very basic energy resources, and services and how any improvement activity is well accepted.
DEMARCO V.
The following review
was posted 31.8.2021, following an experience of 19.8.2021. Yet Carol Penterman was recognised by the NBJ with their Women of Influence Award in 2016. According to her LinkedIn profile, which makes no mention of AGC, she’s worked for her own consultancy since 2018; although it’s not impossible that there’s a working relationship between the two.
The Nashville Business Journal selected Ms Penterman for its Women of Influence Award. The Women of Influence Awards honors the region’s most influential businesswomen who not only work hard but love what they do. They are women from every industry and profession — women who have made a difference in their communities, blazed a trail for the rest of us and are leaving a mark on Nashville.
NANNIE R.
IT AppOps Transformation – Led IT Application Operations (AppOps) Transformation, centralizing support of applications across the enterprise into customer-centric teams. AppOps Transformation resulted in estimated annual business value of $5+ million. Segregated teams into planned and unplanned work using a data-driven approach to improve focus and decrease context switching. Focused team efforts on automation of recurring tasks, prevention of outages and reduction of hand-offs between agile teams, resulting in freeing up resources for IT innovation/development work. Also led vendor consolidation of IT functional support and negotiated a new managed services standard operating model and SOW.
BORIS F.
And there are others, just as meaningless in context. So, yeah, Verified Reviews
my arse!
Update
16.09.2024 19:26 UTC+02:00
A year has passed, and AGC is still pulling in those glowing five-star testimonials! The pattern of submissions to Trustpilot remains interesting
though. The eighty-two made since the beginning of the year occurred in four bursts during 4th–14th January; 20th–23rd March; 5th–12th May; and 20th–30th June. Forty-four of those—an average of four daily—were posted while most of us were still recovering from the New Year celebrations and giving up on our resolutions. It’s almost as if the office intern was told to make themself useful every couple of months or so.
A smattering of four-star reviews occurred during the same periods. But nothing in between, and nothing below four stars fitting this pattern.
In more than 90% of the five-star cases, and all the four-star cases, the review was submitted on the day of the experience or the day after. It’s almost as if the office intern has no imagination.
Over the same period, seven one-star reviews were submitted. These variously note the same concerns as I have described here: that the outreach is spam; the testimonials look decidedly suspicious; and the company seems questionable for numerous reasons.* Some have also gone so far as to research the company on LinkedIn; let’s just say it all appears like something to be avoided. And all of the reviews receive a response opening with:
Having checked our files, we do not appear to have any record of your ever having been a customer of Appleton Greene in any capacity.
AGC response droid
They should check their sent items folder.
Excerpts of feedback taken from Trustpilot on the day of this posting:
1) Appleton Green & Co’s NYC office is a Carr coworking space. The office in Grand Cayman does not exist.
2) Of the 6 people on LinkedIn that list Appleton Green & Co as their employer, 2 don’t work there, 2 are not real people, and 2 have hidden profiles.
3) The company uses predatory e-mail practices, sending e-mail from a different domain than the reply-to account and embedding tracking code in their e-mails.
4) The reviews are laughably fake. They never say who the actual reviewer is and list reviews from big companies about fake or stolen people. Take the review from “L Garnier” from France for example, a reverse image search will find her picture is a stock photo used on other corporate websites. The review from S. Gross shows a photo that is 2010 copyrighted by Jupiter Image Corporation. The image from P. Lowe is on at least 12 other websites as a stock photo.
Larry Winderson, review of Appleton Greene, Trustpilot (09.08.2024)
The website and materials were extremely convincing, but I could find no one on Linked In to back up the claim that they had a large group of consultants. (And I have a large database of credible professionals worldwide on Linked In). I found this odd, but I was so intrigued, I persisted until I was asked to transfer money to the Bahamas! HUGE RED FLAG. When I emailed them about this, I received a strange response: “We don’t say bad things about you. Why do you say bad things about us?”
Rebecca Linquist, review of Appleton Greene, Trustpilot (27.02.2024)
Website privacy policy contains parts taken from Accenture.com privacy policy it seems.
Only 6 employees on linked in.
All the reviews on TrustPilot are fake, badly AI generated garbage.
A Br, review of Appleton Greene, Trustpilot (13.02.2024)
Update
17.09.2024 18:43 UTC+02:00
Do you recall those strange links to AGC’s website that accompanied each of its earlier [cough] Verified
Reviews? Well, they’re also present at Endorsal!
Of the 175 five- and four-star reviews
there, many of which are not reviews of AGC at all, 55% are accompanied by a link to a page on AGC’s website. How many people post a direct link within their review on a company’s own web presence, albeit one hosted by a third-party? For all intents and purposes, it appears that Endorsal is being used as a link farm.
And this comes from a company whose social media
rails against Google index boosting. Hypocrisy, from a two-bit scam company and its hired ambulance-chaser? Who’d’ve thunk it? grifterlawyer
These are the pages that are linked to in those fulsome testimonials. I’ve removed the full URL, so as not to further boost AGC’s Google ranking.
The company recommends four online review sites on its home page: For independently verified client reviews, visit Endorsal Reviews – Verified Reviews – Proven Expert – Trustindex.
But not Trustpilot. Could that be because they have less control over malcontents on Trustpilot?
Average ratings for all sites are out of a maximum of 5. The ratings from Trustindex are made up of nine reviews on the site itself, and the thirty-six over at Proven Expert. Despite not being recommended by AGC, Trustpilot is included for comparison.