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[Tailgate]

Anyone else who unsubscribes from promotional email (Sears, Best Buy, Wayfair etc) but keeps getting the spam? I occasionally clear out any subscriptions I may have intentionally, inadvertently or somehow got picked to receive. Recently, the companies seem to keep sending stuff long after I've apparently successfully unsubscribed.

 

[MichaelB]

This is so frequent I've come to understand that the word "unsubscribe" really means "confirm your subscription" to some advertisers.

Gmail's spam filter will take care of it.

 

[DatumPoint5]

really means "confirm your subscription" to some advertisers.

+10!

 

[gauss]

The merchant may have multiple lists that you need to unsubscribe separately -- especially if they are a large corporation etc.

Another trick is to try to change the email address to something else. I am going through that process with many merchants/mailing lists as we speak.

 

[ERD50]

Are you sure they are really from the company that it says? I've never had any problem unsubscribing from any legitimate 'promotional' emails. I suspect what you got was illegitimate spam, and in that case, unsubscribe does mean - "we got a live one"!

-ERD50

 

[RE2Boys]

Are you sure they are really from the company that it says? I've never had any problem unsubscribing from any legitimate 'promotional' emails. I suspect what you got was illegitimate spam, and in that case, unsubscribe does mean - "we got a live one"!

-ERD50

I've not had a problem with legitimate companies, but ERD50's got it figured out!

 

[GrayHare]

Use throwaway email addresses that forward to your main one. There are several free services that supply throwaways. Never purchase something via your main email address, instead on the shopping cart checkout page always enter a throwaway, and later if spam starts to arrive delete that address.

 

[bUU]

This. I create a new email address for each entity with whom we do business. When one gets "dirty", it gets ditched.

 

[MichaelB]

Are you sure they are really from the company that it says? I've never had any problem unsubscribing from any legitimate 'promotional' emails. I suspect what you got was illegitimate spam, and in that case, unsubscribe does mean - "we got a live one"!

-ERD50

Yes, certain beyond any doubt. It is illegitimate spam, sent by legitimate businesses such as PayPal and Pinterest.

 

[ERD50]

Yes, certain beyond any doubt. It is illegitimate spam, sent by legitimate businesses such as PayPal and Pinterest.

Satire?

Often times, the spammers pose as PayPal and Pinterest, or any 'big name' that a lot of people sign up for, or think they might have. I get them from impostors once in while (they go to my suspected Junk in gmail), I look at them with graphics off to check, and those get trashed.

And not all of them are the poorly written, obvious ones. I got one from "Amazon", it looked just like the emails from the real Amazon, it had valid links to the graphics on Amazon.com, but.... It didn't start out "Dear Mrs. ERD50 (the account is in DW's name), and every legitimate Amazon email has that personal info. So I trashed that one. Had I hit 'unsubscribe', some spammer would have added me to their 'active' list. And maybe I'd be blaming Amazon for not unsubscribing me?

I can only share my experience, I've never had an issue unsubscribing from any legitimate promotional email from any legitimate business. Maybe others have, I don't know, but I suspect those 'promotional' emails were spammers in disguise.

-ERD50

 

[MichaelB]

Satire?

Often times, the spammers pose as PayPal and Pinterest, or any 'big name' that a lot of people sign up for, or think they might have. I get them from impostors once in while (they go to my suspected Junk in gmail), I look at them with graphics off to check, and those get trashed.

And not all of them are the poorly written, obvious ones. I got one from "Amazon", it looked just like the emails from the real Amazon, it had valid links to the graphics on Amazon.com, but.... It didn't start out "Dear Mrs. ERD50 (the account is in DW's name), and every legitimate Amazon email has that personal info. So I trashed that one. Had I hit 'unsubscribe', some spammer would have added me to their 'active' list. And maybe I'd be blaming Amazon for not unsubscribing me?

I can only share my experience, I've never had an issue unsubscribing from any legitimate promotional email from any legitimate business. Maybe others have, I don't know, but I suspect those 'promotional' emails were spammers in disguise.

-ERD50

So, let me get this straight. You give the benefit of the doubt to the internet business that engages in routine and regular mass emailing as a fundamental business practice, and doubt my ability to distinguish between a legitimate and bogus PayPal email?

 

[athena53]

I've got a single spam catcher address- very handy for keeping junk out of my "real" e-mail. Occasionally I send Unsubscribe mails to merchants still spamming 5 years after I made one purchase. I'd say about half comply.

 

[ERD50]

So, let me get this straight. You give the benefit of the doubt to the internet business that engages in routine and regular mass emailing as a fundamental business practice, and doubt my ability to distinguish between a legitimate and bogus PayPal email?

I wasn't sure what you meant - that's why I put the "?" after "Satire"

It seemed you were using illegitimate and legitimate towards the same company, and that threw me. To my thinking a "legitimate" business does not send "illegitimate spam" - that would make the company "illegitimate". I would think "illegitimate spam" would describe the stuff from the impostor frauds.

I have no idea regarding your (or anyone else's) ability to distinguish a legitimate and bogus PayPal email. As I pointed out, I've seen some that looked pretty authentic, I was almost fooled by a few. Most are pretty obvious, but a few are tricky.

And as I said, IME, the "internet business that engages in routine and regular mass emailing as a fundamental business practice" have all respected my "unsubscribe" requests. Other people may have had different experiences, but I also thought a reasonable possibility was that they were responding to a fake email w/o realizing it. It happens.

I've got a few that I'm ready to unsubscribe from - I'll keep track and see how it goes and report back if you wish.

-ERD50

 

[Texas Proud]

Sorry to heat that....

The problem I have is the sites that will not let you unsubscribe if you do not log on and fill out some 'preferences'.... I have had a lot of those...


I also get spammed from various drug websites..... no unsubscribe available...

 

[ERD50]

Sorry to heat that....

The problem I have is the sites that will not let you unsubscribe if you do not log on and fill out some 'preferences'.... I have had a lot of those...


I also get spammed from various drug websites..... no unsubscribe available...

That's some of what I'm talking about. I'm assuming, when you say "spammed from various drug websites" that you mean these are not legitimate businesses that you visited and agreed to get email from, but rather they are illegitimate businesses that sent you totally unsolicited email?

If they are illegitimate businesses, you don't want to hit any "unsubscribe" links (or any other links for that matter), or even allow images to be loaded. That's how they know you are a live one, and you will get on lists to be sold, and will get even more spam.

-ERD50

 

[Choices]

"Unsubscribing" has become my Sunday afternoon activity for the last two weeks. We will see how much gets cleared out..

 

[akck]

I think many companies sell their email lists so you get put back on ones you unsubscribed. Every couple of years, I unsubscribe from ones I'm no longer interested in and it seems to work. Definitely don't touch the oblivious spam ones.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

 

[gauss]

I believe most legitimate businesses, especially the large well known ones,will comply with the Federal CANSPAM law by honoring opt-out requests for marketing email.

Here is an FTC primer on how this is inteded to work. Note the provision for up to a $16,000 fine for violations.

-gauss