ATTENTION NEIGHBORS

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I went out to get the mail a few minutes ago, and I noticed a slip of paper stuck to my door. It was little and notepad sized, so I wondered if maybe one of my neighbours was upset with me.

Then I saw what it said.

Then, I got my camera.

If you can’t read it in that picture for some reason, here’s what it says:


ATTENTION NEIGHBORSA SEX OFFENDER HAS MOVED
INTO THIS AREA ! ! !

WE ARE ASKING EVERYONE
TO BECOME AWARE ! ! !

FINED OUT WHO THEY ARE
AND WHAT THEIR ADDRESS IS!

WWW.NEIGHBORHOODREDALERT.COM

Fined?

Anyway, the first thing I did when I got back inside with my mail, my pictures, and my little bit of paper was check the first official sex offender registry I could find — the Convicted Sex Offender Site. I figure it’s probably official because of the simplistic ‘no bot’ shit. Also, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation/Colorado Department of Public Safety shit. And the state.co.us stuff. I’m a silly, trusting sort of soul.

I limited it to my zip code, my city, and the county I thought I might be in. I got three offenders, and one was just about on the other side of that park with the evil duck.

I did a second search with just my city and my zipcode, opened to all counties, and got 56.

That makes sense. The city is pretty big, spanning two counties. And I bet my zipcode does, too.

Then, I went to the URL on the doorspam.

After I recovered from my “OH GOD A BLINK TAG” fit, I grabbed a throwaway email address and gave them my zipcode.

Then I took a minute to read the site.

If you received a red alert notice then you have at least one or more registered sex offenders living in the community, either under criminal justice supervision or having completed their sentence.

Knowing that it is impossible to notify every citizen about a sex offenders location, our goal is to make the information available so that you can take the appropriate precautions.

Sexually violent predators are the only category of sex offenders subject to community notification.

The ‘red alert’ bit is actually all caps, bold, red, underlined and blinking on the site. They must’ve done some of that through some e-magickqueal trick, because the direct copy-paste I just did didn’t actually let me have the all caps. Strange.

Anyway, this is where I started to wonder a bit. If only ‘sexually violent predators’ are subject to community notification, then why didn’t this slip of paper have anything more than this URL on it? Why wasn’t there a name, an address, and a picture?

But I think I’m getting ahead of myself here, because thinking should never come before the terms and conditions [big image — screenshot spliced together].

Terms and Conditions:

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Loss of or fluctuations in heat, light, or air conditioning? WHAT?! I can’t read the rest of it. Just that line. Is there anything else in there that silly?

Suddenly, I’m glad I gave them a ‘fake’ email address from one of those special throwaway-email, no-signups-necessary type sites.

Anyway, I agreed to not hold them responsible for any fluctuations in air conditioning. And I was not at all surprised by the next page.

Oh no! If I don’t act right now, I won’t get the free Vacuum Cleaner with my purchase of the super As Seen on TV Knife Set and Hair Regrowth Kit! If you clicked on that image, you may’ve noticed that I blurred the names and addresses of the nine NEW! offenders [out of the 114]. That’s not because I’m all about the protection of people who like to stick their personal bits into little kids. I really don’t care about them, or what you do to them. I care about what someone who doesn’t actually do that will do to ME if their name and/or address happen to show up in a public place in a way that causes them some sort of…actionable issue.But, really, why should I pay?

Thank you for your interest in NeighborhoodRedAlert.com

At NeighborhoodRedAlert.com we realize that the information we present is easily obtainable for free, from your local or state government. Just use your favorite search engine and search for, state name + “sex offender”

Even if you do not use our service please take the time to seek this information, for the safety of you and your household

Ignorance is bliss, except when it comes to the safety of your family
As a Father of nine children and Grandfather of ten (so far), I was stunned to find out that 94% of Americans have been to a free sex offender website at one time or another. Only 8% have ever gone back for updated information after intending to do so. 94% proves our good intentions to keep our families safe, the 8% reflects the reality of our busy society.This is where neighborhoodredalert.com provides a crucial service. Did you know that over 1,500 sex offenders have moved or been released in Colorado in the last 6 months? Is one of them your neighbor? Does one live near your child’s school? Does one live near the park where you send them to play? They all live next door to somebody, we feel you should know if it’s near you or someone you care about.We believe it is important for you to know as fast as possible when an offender is released and where in the community the offender will be living. Many of the people that receive the RED ALERT notice are finding out for the first time that they have a sex offender living in close proximity and are now armed with the information needed to protect their families and friends. But what happens in the coming months? These offenders are released or move everyday. If ignored, are you putting your family or friends at greater risk? The offenders that we are putting the spotlight on, are not happy we are doing this. They would just as soon we forget about their offenses and go on with our lives with blinders on—which is always an option.

Neighborhoodredalert.com will monitor your neighborhood constantly so that you don’t have to.

Neighborhoodredalert.com will notify you via e-mail the moment we are made aware a sex offender has moved into your area.

So, they admit that the information can be gotten for free. That’s good. So why don’t they give it for free? If they want to let people know about sex offenders, why don’t they actually let me know? Why don’t they post slips of paper with the names and other information?

Because they couldn’t possibly make any money off it that way, I guess. And probably because they could get themselves into a lot of trouble with the state and the individuals they’re posting information about.

At this point, after going through the state run database, I don’t have any fucking clue what’s going on. This could be a well-intentioned but misinformed person with poor proof-reading skills posting things on doors, this could be a money-making scheme, or it could be some asshole looking to get a lower price on a house in the area.

I’m not saying it’s actually any of these things, though. Please understand that. I’m just…conveying my annoyance at this rather horrible way of notifying a neighbourhood of anything. If anyone is going to attempt to rouse me from my apathetic torpor about anything, there’s a couple of things you should know.

1. No typos. Please, for the love of all things ink can be wasted on, proofread your work. It’s not even a full page.

2. No scam-lookalikes. If you’re attempting to inform me of something terribly important [like a sex offender], do not send me somewhere where some ‘trustworthy grandparent’ only wants $5 a month for the important information to protect ones self and family. That’s just slimy. No decent person should be able to live with themselves if they did this — and I can say this with certainty because I probably could live with myself, and I’m not a decent person.

3. There’s an official state registry. You may not be all that pleased with them, because they actually have a process for evaluating data quality and making sure it’s accurate. The people registered there are meant to be on the lists. A clever person actually seeking to warn a neighbourhood and not gain anything but the personal satisfaction of having done a ‘good deed’ could probably find a way to, say, make a tinyurl that could easily be printed on a little slip of paper with a warning on it. That tinyurl could probably point to the person’s file in the sex offender registry — the free, official one that the state runs.

If I were to get a slip of paper with something pointing me to the official registry, I might take it seriously instead of blogging about it and wondering why I’m not doing more important things.

There’s really nothing more I can say about this, except: by viewing this site, you agree to not hold me responsible for any loss of or fluctuations in heat, lights or air conditioning, or for any accidental pregnancies, or anything else that may happen to you.

0 thoughts on “ATTENTION NEIGHBORS

  1. hey yeah I got a slip of paper like that.. I went to the website but got an error page, so I googled it and your page came up first… Odd?

    I think yes.

    Also, I searched through neighborhoodredalert.com, and it said I have 56 sexual predators living in my zip code. Then the official registry said I have none. I suppose 56 is more interesting than zero, and I’m wondering who would put these little slips of paper all over my neighborhood, my friends neighborhoods ((from completely different zip codes)) and apparently yours as well.

    Whoever it is should take a short walk across a wide road and get hit by a bus.

    Or something of the sort.

    • I don’t get it. What’s ‘odd’ about one website coming up over another in searches? Or is the oddness that you couldn’t get to that website, but you could this one? Am I being blamed for something here, a grand conspiracy perhaps?

      I’m not responsible for whatever it is. If I wanted a few more hits, I wouldn’t go all over the state [or states, based on some of the searches I’m getting] posting fliers for a scam sex offender registry. That’s way more work than I’d ever want to do for anything. And, since you have numbers from their site, I obviously didn’t do anything to it. Also way more work, and way more legal trouble than I’d ever want to get into.

      I didn’t do anything to the search engines either. I’ve just been a strangely popular hit for that search term, and I somehow got into the search engines the same day I posted this article. If I were paying, for whatever reason, I’d be in the special sponsored box. If I were doing anything else, I wouldn’t be in google, because they’re awful about unlisting people sometimes.

      • I don’t think anyone is blaming you for anything. Seems like Valerie was simply saying how “odd” it was that she couldn’t even access the site (neither could I when I got a slip in Wash Park), not that you’re manipulating information to rank high and receive traffic. I found it odd as well but I saw your site was a discussion about the note so I came here. If it makes you feel any better, you came up after the neighborhoodredalert.com when I searched it (#4 actually).

        But anyway, this little note makes me sad that people would sink to this level to try to capitalize on such horrible circumstances. I hope people see this for what it is. Apparently they have since the seems to have been taken down.

  2. I noted on my blog and it was noted in the KUSA articles that a few people that have signed up for this have been spammed beyond belief. the website is nothing more than a way to harvest e-mails and sell them to advertisers.

    The sex offender DB, if it’s even accurate and updated, is secondary. Big scam

    james http://www.futuregringo.com

  3. Thank you for writing about this! I rarely comment on blogs, but…
    Wow, what a truly horrible scam. I searched before I even went to the site, for fear of malicious XSS attacks, and it was your “content blurb” on the results page that made me come here first (via Technorati). Actually, you are now 6th on my search results page (Scroogle scraper) for neighborhoodredalert[dot]com. The Daily Camera has an article about this problem occurring in broomfield from July 11, and these latest comments seem to indicate this is now hitting the Wash Park vicinity. I just hope I don’t actually see someone doing this because I won’t be able to help myself…

    btw, nice blog; the only benefit from this ludicrous front-door spam.

  4. Also, they fixed the typo on their “spamphlet”, they are employing the homeless for distribution (kind of cool), the person(s) responsible are allegedly from C Springs, and there is a real nice google mashup site that offers this info for free: familywatchdog[dot]us that is 10x better than our official state site.

  5. Just thought I’d add we received one of these slips (type now corrected) the other day. The site is up, so whatever prompted them to take it down before didn’t stick.

    ~Kai

    Centennial, CO

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