Stay away from LEATHERMENSDUNGEON.COM or else....

It's time that I chronicle my experience (and others) in dealing with the online gay website "Leathermensdungeon.com". If you don't read anything further, just avoid this site.

For those interested, I posted the following on my website:

Leathermensdungeon.com, It is my personal opinion that this site sucks. I was a member for almost a year and it was nothing but frustration for me. Most of my beefs revolved around the owner (Jeep) who treated me condescendingly. Your membership will be suspended if you decline to accept the endless SPAM from them promoting their other sites - however he claims it isn't spam. IMHO I think the site borders on megalomania for Jeep who wants us all to admire him and his slaves and pay for and accept his somewhat un-sportsmanlike treatment. IMHO, there is just no comparison between this site and WorldLeatherMen UPDATE: Since letting my subscription run out the junk SPAM continues to hit my inbox from this and many of his affiliate sites (beartrappings.com, jpsjocks, etc.). I have sent no less than 10 requests for it to stop and each request seems to bring on more. He provides an "opt-out" option which in my case does nothing to curb the crap mail. Think twice before signing up or you might experience the same ordeal I am currently in.

I have received numerous emails from strangers who have Google’d Leathermensdungeon and come up with a link to my posting (which is buried deep inside my website as a community reosource). It seems as though literally hundreds of people have had similar experiences with this company.

Here are some examples of what I have received (email address and names removed):

from “JT”

Hi

Read the bit about leathermensdungeon.com on your website and frankly I couldn't agree more. Like an idiot I merrily posted pics in the "truth or dare" game and now I want them taken down. According to leatherjeep it is impossible to remove "truth or dare" pics and it is illegal for him to delete a profile. I gather you've had some run ins with him in the past. I'm not sure whether he's just being a contrary fuck or whether he's actually telling the truth but in any case I want the damn pics taken down and my profile deleted. I know it's a bit silly to be emailing you about this, but I'm sorta desperate and was wondering if you knew of anyway for me to do this.

I'm not prepared to accept that he has to keep my profile there by law, even though I can delete all the personal details from it nor do I believe it is impossible for him to remove pics posted in the truth or dare section. It does seem that he enjoys the power too much and that he abuses it, but I don't know who to go to to complain about him and get this sorted. If you've got any ideas or suggestions I'd be really grateful.

Thanks

From “AD”

hey man just wanted to confirm what an asshole the owner of Leathermensdungeon.com, that bastard has written me some of the most nasty letters you can imagine but not sure if it is the same owner this assholes name is

Gary Niederhelman
IronClad Media

anyway I am going to send his nasty letters to every credit card company that i can and tell them how he treats his customers

take care

From “JW”

hello Leatherbound,

what am I happy to find a co-sufferer from "Leathermensdungeon.com" aka Jeff aka ICM-nj.com! This scam cannot be outspammed worldwide.

Apart from this jeep web site he/they spam(s) me endlessly now and I have to add new addresses to my filters each day. I suspected this bastard to have a fake opt-out, which will still increase the number of spam mails, so I never touched that link. Still: Somehow he seems to detect when I add one of his URLs to the AIM server based filter, which deletes the mails on receiving them. Consequently he will try a different domain. Disgusting!

Could you please mail me a list of all domains that you are aware of? I want to end that crap.

Thanks so much.

Worried and out-of-my-nerves with this:
-JW

Btw: Should you want to know how I found your ever-so-true text about Leathermensdungeon.com, that was by Google search. Feel free to mail me back for details.

Here is the original exchange which I had with this dork:

----Original Message Follows----
From: StPat@leathermensdungeon.com
To: XXXXXXX@hotmail.com
Subject: LeathermensDungeon.com St. Patrick's Day Sale
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 08:19:39 -0500 (EST)

Hello LAlthrbound,

We're excited to announce that our St. Patrick's Day Sale is going on now.
It's your chance to get all the features of the internet's largest site for
Leathermen, Rubbermen and Bears for just $2 a month!

To take advantage of this fantastic offer of 50% off our regular
subscription price and start hooking up with all the hot members of LMD,
just purchase a one year subscription for a low $24 any time this week.

Sincerely,

The Staff of LeathermensDungeon.com


-----Original Message-----
From: [mailto:XXXXXXX@hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 3:14 PM
To: StPat@leathermensdungeon.com
Subject: RE: LeathermensDungeon.com St. Patrick's Day Sale

Immediately remove me from your SPAM list. I do not wish to receive ANY
communications from Leathermensdungeon. Thank you.


----Original Message Follows----
From : Master Jeep
Reply-To :
Sent : Thursday, March 11, 2004 12:40 PM
To : XXXXXX@hotmail.com
Subject : RE: LeathermensDungeon.com St. Patrick's Day Sale

Fact: SPAM is unsolicited Commercial Email

Fact: You registered on one or more of my sites

Fact: By doing so you agreed to my Terms of Service

Fact: This is not spam

To this day, I continue to receive SPAM from his affiliated companies – despite numerous attempts requsting that it stop. His “opt out” option is a pure and deceptive lie.

I decided to do a little digging for myself. I Google’d “Gary Niederhelman IronClad Media” and hit a jackpot of disgruntled webdom. The most revealing was a site called “RipOffReport.com”. The specific link is:

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff170030.htm

Here is the text of the exchange between a scammed user and the owner of the company:

Category:
Adult Web Site
Submitted: 1/1/2006 4:22:56 PM
Modified: 1/2/2006 7:45:39 PM

Ironclad Media - Gary Niederhelman remove - delete account - SPAM - unsolicited email - rude Neptune New Jersey *REBUTTAL Owner of company ..Whiners are Weiners

Company
Ironclad Media
Address:
419 Helen Ter
Neptune New Jersey 07753
U.S.A.

I created an account with www.beartrapping.com which is an adult, gay oriented website. Most adult/gay *quality* web sites offer a trial membership for anywhere from $1 to $5 for a few days to allow the user to browse the site to discover if the site has content they like. This site has no such offer.

Since joining, I regularly receive e-mails from addresses such as BearMail_January12006@BearTrapping.com, Pager_January12006@BearTrapping.com, etc... After seeing how user-unfriendly the navigation is compared to *quality* web sites and the fact that any link you click on takes you to a page that says "This content requires a subscription", I give up.

At the bottom of each regularly received e-mail is a statement that reads something like:

To remove your name from this mailing list type http://www.beartrapping.com/email_cleanup.cfm?address=XXXX@comcast.net into your browser.

or

You are receiving this email because you have an active, open account on BearTrapping.com - To inactivate your account type http://www.beartrapping.com/email_cleanup.cfm?address=XXXX@comcast.net into your browser.

I consider myself a responsible, intelligent adult. Since I remember entering information with this web site, I do not consider the regular e-mail SPAM. However, receiving regular e-mail from a web site that looks like a 5th grader designed it, does not interest me. I decided to have my e-mail removed.

I followed the instructions in each of the e-mails, copying and pasting the URL into my browser, each time receiving a message "Your email address has been inactivated. Thank you for using IronClad Media Web Services." only to receive more e-mails the next day, and days after that.

At this point I figured that following the instructions provided was not going to stop the regular e-mails so I sent an e-mail to the webmaster using the address webmaster@beartrapping.com.

My e-mail was short and simple:

-----Original Message-----
From: XXXX@comcast.net [mailto:XXXX@comcast.net]
Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2006 12:04 PM
To: 'webmaster@beartrapping.com'
Subject: Please Remove My E-mail Address and Cancel This Account

Please remove mmy E-mail address and cancel this account.

-----------------

Within one hour, I received the following response:

-----Original Message-----
From: BearDen [mailto:BearDen@BearTrapping.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2006 12:54 PM
To: XXXX@comcast.net
Subject: RE: Please Remove My E-mail Address and Cancel This Account

Thank you for emailing customer service. We're sorry, but you may not use our sites without accepting email from us. That is part of our Terms of Service, which you agreed to when you created your account, and each time you used it. Since you're certainly a responsible adult, we're certain that you actually read it before you created your account. It is the same principle where you cannot watch NBC without them being permitted to market cholesterol drugs and SUV's to you every 15 minutes of every single day.

Our marketing policy is designed to show you the quantity of content we offer our subscribers (subscribers do not receive these promotional emails), a quantity that is not matched by any of our competitors, regardless of the fact that they charge up to 4 times as much as we do for access to their systems. If you're one of those people looking for free porn, STOP. The internet isn't some giant United Way charity for scumbags looking for free porn. Our subscription prices are the lowest, we have the most content and
entertainment resources, and it's not free to bring that to you.

The rules are simple. Use the url at the bottom of the email you received to inactivate your account - and don't come back - to any of our sites. You must do this yourself so that we can record your IP address with the transaction, in the event that at some point in the future you try to slide through our system, use your account, then whine that you didn't and start crying 'spam'.

If, on the off chance you're using a sub-standard mail reader such as Yahoo mail, you may have to work a little harder to copy the link since those readers do not display HTML formatted mail properly, and omit the background color of emails....so that the URL looks like silver text on a white background....rest assured though it is there....and this is a perfect opportunity to assess the services you're getting from those providers.

Gary Niederhelman
IronClad Media

-----------------

At first, I was insulted but then after a bit, I just had to laugh. What kind of person who runs a business would send such an e-mail to a user regardless if the user has paid for the service or not. If this user is a potential paying customer, they certainly would not be now.

I must admit, I did not read the terms of service when I originally signed up. However, I have since done so; all 4,510 words of it. I was unable to locate any verbage describing how to cancel or terminate the account. However, I did read that if I'm dishonest or use deception when joining, that Ironclad will immediately terminate my account and collect a $10,000.00 termination fee. Perhaps I should sign up for the service again, using false information with the same e-mail address. Good luck on getting that ten grand!

I'm not going to go into all of the issues I could rebut with Mr. Niederhelman's e-mail because by reading the other posts, it is clear he lacks the intelligence to grasp basic business and social concepts (i.e. referring to users with words such as "scumbag", "troublemaker", etc...).

That all said and done, I'll just put the beartrapping.com domain on my e-mail's block list. I wish I had found ripoffreport.com prior to joining this site. Perhaps my post and those made by others will help prevent other "responsible adults" from the joys of dealing with Mr. Niederhelman and his oh so many web sites.

One last note, if Mr. Niederhelman wants to provide a response to my complaint, I'll save him the trouble and copy/paste the same response he provides to other complaints, whether the response addresses the issue or not:

-----------------

"Nice that this complainant took a partial sentence of our response and twisted it to fit his needs. Fact is, we cannot delete profiles because of people like him. When he returns to one of our many sites, and they almost invariably do, we need to be able to match the troublemaker with their past records across all of our sites/databases. Because of scumbags like this one who think that a company's services should be provided to them for free, we have to keep every record, and every email address and every IP and login time for every user. That way when they cry to sites like this or other agencies we can cover our asses. And it's not like we're trying to rip anyone off. Our subscription prices are consistently lower than any other gay adult site. Typically a year runs $36 to $48 but we regularly have sales selling a year for $24. Now, if you're in the boat with this complainant, take heed: be a responsible internet user, read a sites terms of service BEFORE you create an account, and if you're looking for a free ride, turn off your computer.

Gary - Belmar, New Jersey
U.S.A."

-----------------

Neiderhelman is a real winner, isn’t he! Is this the kind of person and company you would like to do business with? I’ll bet not. Logic dictates that you steer clear of any of this mans companies.

For those of you who, like myself, are victims of his scam, here is a list of domains that you can block to stop the flow of SPAM from this jerk:

• jeepjocks.com
  
• icm-nj.com
  
• jpsjocks.com
  
• leatherjeep.com
  
• mediacorpstudios.com
  
• bearlocator.com
  
• beartrapping.com
  
• gayroughnecks.com
  
• gaytats.com
  
• inthedungeon.com
  
• leathermansearch.com
  
• leathermensdungeon.com
  

Have you been scammed by any of these companies? I would like to know about it – perhaps nothing will come of it but the world deserves to know and hopefully we all can help prevent others from stepping in smelly shit.

Cheers everyone....

-Lthrbound