A Manchester founder has called out what he described as “the worst case of outreach” he’s ever seen after a US tech consultancy used the subject line “Saw your name in the Epstein Files” prompting a wave of criticism.
Simran Whitham, founder of events and marketing agency FORMAT Group, shared a screenshot of the email on LinkedIn, which carried the subject line “Saw your name in the Epstein Files” and was sent as part of an apparent outbound sales campaign.
In his post, Whitham said he was “beyond appalled” by what he had discovered in his inbox, accusing the sender of exploiting “one of the most diabolical cases of child and human exploitation in modern history” to drive engagement.
“I avoid drama of any kind on the internet, but this s*** needs calling out,” he wrote. “I am actually disgusted beyond belief that any company in the world could greenlight outreach emails like this, automated or not, to be sent out to potential leads.”
He added that despite experiencing aggressive sales tactics in the past, this was “the worst case of outreach I have ever seen, period”.
The company behind the email was Clustox, a US-based software development and technology consulting business, which has since apologised for the emails. Whitham’s post quickly gained traction, with dozens of comments condemning the approach.
Some described the email as “vile”, “disgusting”, “appalling” and “a new low”, with commenters saying they had received similar messages in recent days. One marketing consultant wrote: “Exploiting an extremely disturbing ring of child abuse in the name of growing a vanity metric is just stomach churning.” Another added: “That is an entirely new level of vile sales behaviour.”
Others questioned how such a message could have passed internal checks. “Perhaps it reflects a more worrying culture at the given organisation, if this is deemed the ‘norm’,” one leadership psychologist commented. Several contributors suggested the tactic was designed purely to boost open rates, regardless of reputational damage.
Clustox has since apologised for the emails saying ‘the recent outreach email was unacceptable and does not reflect our standards.’ They said immediate action has been taken.’
The company posted a full apology on Linkedin. it read: “At Clustox, we hold ourselves to a high standard of professional ethics and integrity. Recently, a member of our outreach team fell significantly short of those standards by sending a cold email with an entirely inappropriate and misleading subject line. We want to state clearly: This does not reflect who we are as a company.
“The use of “shock” tactics that reference sensitive or traumatic legal matters is unacceptable and unprofessional. We have already reached out privately to apologize to those who received the email, but we also want to apologize publicly to our community and those who were rightfully offended by the email.
“What we are doing about it: We have addressed this matter internally with the individuals involved. We are overhauling our outreach review process to ensure all communications are vetted for tone and professional conduct. We are conducting mandatory sensitivity and ethics training for the outreach team.”
Whitham, however, rejected the company’s explanation, responding publicly to the company’s comment. He accused Clustox of attempting to “jump on the trend of mentioning the files of a known child exploiter” and only apologising after the backlash.
“You’re only apologising because you got caught out,” he wrote. “I just received your CEO’s email, (love how it’s a template without their name on btw) and as a fellow CEO this is shameful.”
