So why have I written the past two posts about Lucky Gunner’s apparent silent ownership of various other ammunition-supplying webpages out there? Things like this rank pretty highly towards the top of the “reason” pile:
Last fall, I got some spam from BulkAmmo. And I posted about it. They had asked for free links "just because", essentially. A few days later, they sent the same request, and I ignored the email but posted another blog entry. Spam is spam; the delete key is easy, and BulkAmmo went on my "don’t do business with them" list.
Now I’ve found out that all the above companies are one and the same, and I’m pretty angry. I’m feeling like I was taken advantage of. LuckyGunner was making some good inroads with the blogging community, and I have a feeling they may have burned a lot of those bridges.
My last post was a review of ammo that they provided – and it has the links back to them that I agreed to. You’ll notice that their name isn’t linked anywhere in this post. There’s a reason for that. I sold a link to Sportsman’s Guide last winter – it’s over there in the sidebar – and that was a clear and honest trade. They paid me, I put up a link worded how they wanted it, for a set period of time. Easy.
LuckyGunner.com, BulkAmmo.com, Ammo.net, and GunsForSale.com have tried to sidestep this process.
Having a company, and then opening various “competitors” without explaining that you actually own those competitors is inherently and intrinsically deceptive, and can result in people doing things that they did not actually want to do. It gives you “disposable” storefronts that you can use to spam people, and then rest assured that they will visit your other storefronts, oblivious that their money and efforts are going to support the same people in the end.
Being a man who values honesty and integrity, once I had the information rattling around in my head for the past couple of months crystallized by a few nudges from a friend, there was no way I could not publish it, lest more people be unwittingly exploited. Now, if you continue patronize Lucky Gunner et al, at least you will know who you are dealing with.
And speaking of “knowing who you are dealing with”, who owns and is running the “People of the Gun” right now? You guessed it – Ammo.net. Good way to get links, nyet?
Thank you for taking the time to publish this. I hadn’t previously bought anything from these sites, but I now have a good reason not to. I don’t care if it’s legal, I think what they’re doing is dishonest.
Glad to have been of service!
And, really, if they had been forthright with the ownership of all the various sites, I never would have cared… but they tried to hide which, which makes a cynical person like me wonder why.
Thanks for the post. I have an elaborate bookmark file system where I add bookmarks for holsters, optics and ammo – all for future purchases. I’ve since stripped the ammo folder of the names in your post.
I have recently bought from SGA Ammo (sgammo.com) and been happy with their site, prices and service.
There’s an easy way to deal with this…. don’t run ads. If you are running ads, you are turning your blogging hobby into a business… and if you want to run a business, then be prepared to run a business.
@ Karl: Good you found the post useful – I have been happy with Cabelas, Georgia Arms, AmmunitiontoGo, and AmmoMan.
@ Andy: Cannot say as though I see how a corporation’s questionable business practices has any bearing on whether or not someone should run advertisements on their site; granted, one should thoroughly investigate the company one deals with before doing so, but it is not like Lucky Gunner made this informatoin easy to find…
@ Linoge, that’s my point. If your reputation is important to your business, you’re business should be careful about the other company’s with which it does business. There are companies that provide business reputation services out there which you can use.
But that is rather my point as well – businesses should not be in the habit of trying to hide things from customers or potential business associates. It tends to be bad for business, as Lucky Gunner is finding.
Bulkammo.com spammed me too, and asked me to put an ad on my site. I deleted their e-mails and never responded back.
And thus the problem with this whole “disposeable domain” problem – not disclosing the nature of their relationship leads people into doing business with one hand while the other hand annoys the hell out of them.
I would call it “bipolar disorder”, but there are more than two…