I looked at the email she forwarded. You should, too. Check it out:
Dear Melinda:
Are you looking to acquire or build an email list of IT Decision makers across USA? If YES, we have 150,000 plus contacts with emails.
Our list comes with contact name, business name, job title, mailing address, telephone number, fax number, website url and contact person deliverable optin email address.
The list would become an asset once you acquire from us. You can use this list in multiple channels like email campaigns, direct mail campaigns and also for your telemarketing initiatives.
We have a promotional offer this month for acquring complete 150,000 contacts.
If you have any other specifications, please let me know to work on it and get back to you with the counts.
Also, if every thing looks fine, let me know to send you few samples and the proposal for your review.
If there is some one else in your organization that I need to speak in this regard, please let me know the details. Thank you in advance for this.
Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
The email contains unsubscribe instructions and contact information. So, it was probably legally compliant. But was it smart? Was it wise? Is anybody really dumb enough to buy a list from somebody who sent you an unsolicited email?
Think about it. If this guy has to resort to spam to sell himself, then how good are his lists? What are the chances that his lists are spam lists, regardless of how "opt-in" they claim to be. He's already demonstrating a lack of respect for subscribers, a lack of respect for permission.
My guess is, there's probably around a 100% chance that the lists he's selling aren't quite as opt-in as he claims they are.
Yuck.
