Hornet plugins constant email spam. Unsubscribe not working

[HoRNet]

Going through my inbox, looks like he sends out an email every day, sometimes more than one.
That being said, it's nice to know I'm not the only one critical of HoRNet's plugins. Saverio's heart is in the right place; I appreciate all the freebies and discounts he offers along with his politeness and willingness to interact with the community, but he would really benefit from some extra help. I've tried a lot of plugins from HoRNet and most of them have had issues with distortion, random crackling or intense cpu spikes. A metering plugin should not make my audio sound like it's being ran through a bitcrusher. GUIs definitely need work too, or at least a different color scheme.

Hi thank you for appreciating our work. we are always more than willing to improve the products and fix them when needed. Sooner or later the bugs get fixed so please as I always say open a support ticket. we prioritize bug fixing according to the everity of the bug and the number of people that reports it.

Regards
Saverio

[HoRNet]

Hi, if the unsubscribe system is not working please send me you email address and we'll make sure to add it to our general mail blacklist ad you won't receive email anymore.
If you have issues with plugin please let me know so we can fix them

Regards
Saverio

We've gone through this many times before.. last time, about 3 years ago, you SWORE I was taken off any email lists completely (after I told you I'd take legal action). That was true for exactly 3 years.. then I suddenly started getting them again.

I have spoken with colleagues who also got your spam and have many times tried to unsubscribe from your spam list.. without success. Some of them have even tried contacting you per email over the years, all of them ending up using 3rd party solutions to automatically forward your emails into the trash or if they were lucky enough to use Gmail, report it as spam and be done with it.

Needless to say, all of the people I know personally who have dealt with your email bullshit think your company is 100% a scam and have never purchased anything again from you. I don't think you realize the damage you are causing.

We've even had some half-joking banter over a few beers considering legal action as you are in the EU and you should abide by EU laws but you obviously do not. So far it's only been an internal joke, making fun of your brand and plugins.

As I stated earlier. I now used the option in the Hornetplugins user account to DELETE my whole account and take all my personal information off it. I truly do hope that system works.. because if I do get any more spam from your company I will file a report with my local representative here who hopefully forwards it to whatever powers EU oversight may hold. Probably won't do much but at least there's another mark in a book somewhere of the abuse your company is doing.

Ok we switched emailing systems many times and surely at least twice in the last three years. WE only recently put in place an internal black list to make sure not to loose unsubscribe info because non of the systems we used (and I can tell you they are not "obscure" companies) offer a reliable unsubscribe export for large tables like we have (more than 200K contacts) We also tried an in-house system but it was too rime consuming so we recently switched again to an external provider and decided to keep local lists for unsubscribes so if for some reason that info has been lost, please just drop me a line and i'll make sure your address don't get lost again.

Regards
Saverio

[ampetrosillo]

Going through my inbox, looks like he sends out an email every day, sometimes more than one.
That being said, it's nice to know I'm not the only one critical of HoRNet's plugins. Saverio's heart is in the right place; I appreciate all the freebies and discounts he offers along with his politeness and willingness to interact with the community, but he would really benefit from some extra help. I've tried a lot of plugins from HoRNet and most of them have had issues with distortion, random crackling or intense cpu spikes. A metering plugin should not make my audio sound like it's being ran through a bitcrusher. GUIs definitely need work too, or at least a different color scheme.

They are really buggy. Some work fine enough, once they're set at least: the tape emulations, although they are kinda crude; his LA2A sounds nice and works well on bass and vocals; I also weirdly like his spring reverb, which is basically a very "ideal" implementation of a spring reverb with none of the real-world colouration, but it works nice for certain things and it's distinctive enough to do its own thing. But there are many that I wouldn't trust to use in a mix because they are temperamental.

[midi sentinel]

Because of constant spam and not respecting unsubscribe requests I've blocked his whole domain a while ago. Never used any plugins even though I bought a bunch, they were always just buggy and ugly.

I run my own mail servers so I don't have to endure "Oh sorry, dog ate our mailing list" excuses but I really feel for people who keep receiving this crap in perpetuity. Spam is one thing that instantly triggers me, grrrr.

[jens]

I really don't know where all this extreme negativity comes from - what on earth?

@bmanic: deleting yor entire customer account rather than simply marking an e-mail as spam at the click of a button is a move of such a dramatic posture that Shakespeare is shaking his head in his grave as we speak, uttering "Now verily, that is indeed somewhat excessive, is it not?".


Leave Saverio alone already, you hateful little buggers!

[lingyai]

Since sending this email, I keep getting Hornet spam. Can't imagine why the developer thinks the mosquito marketing strategy - buzz around, shoo when shood away, then come back to buzz around, ad infinitum - is a good one. Don't mean to be harsh by posting publicly, but nothing else seems to work
==============
"From: xxx
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2025 17:30
To: Saverio Vigni saverio.vigni@hornetplugins.com
Subject: Re: [EXCLUSIVE] Secret 82% OFF Multicomp Plus MK2
 
Earlier this year, in February, you bombarded me with emails. You apolgised and said you would stop. You didn't stop, so I sent you this email:

====================
From: xxx
Sent: Wednesday, February 5, 2025 09:07
To: saverio.vigni@hornetplugins.com <saverio.vigni@hornetplugins.com>
Subject: Re: Last Chance: 90% Off Multicomp Plus MK2 – Ends Tonight!
 
Please manually remove my email from your database, as your unsubscribe option is not working.
====================

What part of "manually remove my email from your database" is not clear to you?

Your plugins that I've tried are ok, but non-essential. So I can promise you, now, I have decided to never buy from you again — you spam, apologise, spam, apologise, spam .... NO MORE

Make it stop now, or I will post about this on KVR. Your choice, sir"

[scatman84]

Hornet is a small independent audio software developer who relies heavily on email marketing.

Many of his plugins are good.

I don't see a point in bitching about his emailing you because you can easily flag him as "Spam" and your email will send it to Spam folder.

Why bother to tarnish his reputation here?

This is an audio production forum and I don't think you should expose your personal email communication here and try to sabotage an honest developer's image like this.

In this era of hyper competition, AI invasion, we should try and encourage audio software developers, more so the independent, individual ones.

It's understandable if anyone loots you or scams you and then you go on internet to expose him.

This is a pretty harmless issue which can be solved by "Add to Spam" button in your email.

Support independent developers, don't bring them down unnecessarily.

[HcDoom]

Hornet is a small independent audio software developer who relies heavily on email marketing.

Many of his plugins are good.

I don't see a point in bitching about his emailing you because you can easily flag him as "Spam" and your email will send it to Spam folder.

Why bother to tarnish his reputation here?

This is an audio production forum and I don't think you should expose your personal email communication here and try to sabotage an honest developer's image like this.

In this era of hyper competition, AI invasion, we should try and encourage audio software developers, more so the independent, individual ones.

It's understandable if anyone loots you or scams you and then you go on internet to expose him.

This is a pretty harmless issue which can be solved by "Add to Spam" button in your email.

Support independent developers, don't bring them down unnecessarily.

100% agree

[Teksonik]

This isn't the first time Hornet been called out. Actions have consequences or at least they should have and that includes developers too.

viewtopic.php?t=627476

It's not up to the end user to fix the issue. It's up the business owner to not cause the issue in the first place.

"Italian law, heavily based on GDPR and the Italian Privacy Code, requires that all marketing emails include a clear, easy-to-use option to unsubscribe. Consent is generally mandatory (opt-in) for sending promotional emails. Violations can result in massive fines imposed by the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali".

[MillerSam]

I understand that a small company needs email marketing. But do you really need to receive an email every day with a different 98% deal or 97% deal, etc.? That's very reminiscent of Waves. This doesn't reflect well on the company, and in the long run, people will turn away. A weekly newsletter is acceptable, but daily or several times a day to say: now it's the ultimate mega deal... Phew

[lingyai]

Hornet is a small independent audio software developer who relies heavily on email marketing.

Many of his plugins are good.

I don't see a point in bitching about his emailing you because you can easily flag him as "Spam" and your email will send it to Spam folder.

Why bother to tarnish his reputation here?

This is an audio production forum and I don't think you should expose your personal email communication here and try to sabotage an honest developer's image like this.

In this era of hyper competition, AI invasion, we should try and encourage audio software developers, more so the independent, individual ones.

It's understandable if anyone loots you or scams you and then you go on internet to expose him.

This is a pretty harmless issue which can be solved by "Add to Spam" button in your email.

Support independent developers, don't bring them down unnecessarily.

It is not sabotage to tell the truth. And if you don't mind being spammed, then he won't be losing business from you and like-minded others.

He tarnishes his own reputation. He brings this on himself by lying when he promises to stop. I did warn him. There has to be a price for breaking your word.

Honouring people's opt-out/unsubscribe preferences is just baseline responsible behaviour, has been for decades. He knows what he's doing. See here: viewtopic.php?t=627476

Complaints about developers' business practices are common on KVR. That makes sense on this "audio forum". Other developers who behave the same way (such as the guy behind WUSIK) get called out for it here too.

If you feel so strongly, feel free to start a post of your own supporting him.

Meanwhile, you could consider this a favour to him, i.e. advice to stop doing things which alienate customers.

[Benedict]

By law in most countries, the sender of bulk email MUST stop when requested. That makes it clear that it is not on the receiver. So on that front, the OP is well within their rights to raise issue. He took it to the source, the source did not fix it so he has taken it to a space where the source may pay better attention. His post appears 'within reason'.

Having worked in a bulk email house for a bit, I do know that sometimes things do not go to plan like the person has several registered email addresses or the system simply has a cow. We don't know if Severigno actioned this request or not right now.

Still, it is an issue as Sev is somewhat enthusiastic in his approach, which does leave him a larger target for fails of any kind. I understand he may be upset to see this. But that is likely the idea, an appeal to him and devs in general who have started treating their target market like NPCs (serfs in a world-building game).

- - -
My personal experience is that my unsub did take. I moved away for several reasons:

I loved Analog Stage 1, but AS 2 didn't feel the same at all, so I felt it was a dead end. Besides, I could replace it. I lost the Group thing, but by then, I trusted enough not to need to A-B as I know what is working and what is not.

I could have simply sat on AS 1, but at the same time, Sev adopted a new format for his plugins, which I found to be close to 100% unreliable. Initially, I figured he'd fix it (he said he did), but it didn't seem to happen as trying new plugins not only forced the hated Doin(ggg!) on me but also most plugs I tried behaved wacky or even crashed my DAW pretty reliably.

All whilst Sev became more excitable (commanding, demanding) with his marketing approach. So I moved away.

I am saying this now as perhaps it helps Devs to see that they can erode respect by moving from the mentality of a Craftsman to that of a (perceived) huckster, with all the top-down Market AT the chuds mindset that dominates DAWville (led by the WAD Pluginz mindset).

[Danilo Villanova]

Spamming is wrong, doesn't matter how small you are. Stop making excuses.

[Funky40]

I unsubscribe to Devs who spam me.....and turn off of them.



We all have a problem with too much emails caused by this and that.
A Dev who is not aware of that.....HAS something wrong somewhere.

[skarvika]

Another thread about this. Go figure, I've just received my 11th email from him this week.