Wait, before you go all ‘just delete the fucking email’ on me, read this entire post.
Starts out on August 18th, 2010 – first email received to a completely unpublished alias I have at the $orkplace:
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:46:38 -0700
From: [email protected]
To: [redacted]
Subject: Our Gift to You: Receive a WD 120GB Hard Drive when you make your first purchase!
Pretty simple eh? Message is unreadable in a text mail reader, looks dandy in HTML.
I check the headers and everything is legit – it is all from Newegg’s systems (see end of article).
So, I figure Newegg has made a mistake, and I unsubscribe via their unsubscribe link – never had a bad experience perhaps I’ll see how it goes.
Date: 18 Aug 2010 14:49:53 -0700
From: Newegg <[email protected]>
To: [redacted]
Subject: NeweggBusiness – eBlast Unsubscription Confirmation
I called into their business department to investigate this and talked to a very nice gentleman by the name of Jeffrey who was a little flustered with me (I was as well) but we traded some emails and he said he’d get back to me when he learned something.
Then today…
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:31:13 -0700
From: [email protected]
To: [redacted same never published email alias]
Subject: Our Gift to You: Receive a WD 120GB Hard Drive when you make your first purchase!
WHAT? Newegg sends it again?
Yep! The same message, same content (some differences in tracking URLs of course), and after the unsubscribe supposedly, same basic path through their email network.
I’ll include the headers for both messages below after I am done (though I will be removing the never published email alias and other types of email address things that could be abused).
So, I sent off this second message to Jeffrey (who hadn’t gotten back to me anyway dealing with how this all happened, but it had only been ~24 hours), and his response, verbatim:
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:29:14 -0700
From: “Jeffrey [redacted]” <Jeffrey[redacted]@newegg.com>
To: Mike Horwath <$work email>
Subject: RE: [[email protected]: NeweggBusiness – eBlast Unsubscription Confirmation]Dear Mike Horwath,
After checking into the issue, the email was obtained from an outside source through a separate channel. We cannot confirm how but the email was in our database and will be deleted in the next 48 hours.
Thank you.Your Friend from Newegg,
Jeffrey [redacted]
Senior Customer Service Agent
I am very disappointed in Newegg.
Jeffrey – thank you for getting back to me, I appreciate it.
Hello Mike,
First and foremost, I would like to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. If this these emails still persist, please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected] or call me at 1800-390-1119 ext 25062. I would be more than happy to personally assist you with this situation.
Thank you.
Newegg.com
There aren’t any options to enter an extension at the number you gave above.
So, from the quick response here, going to assume that Newegg is admitting to using ‘lists’ to send out their promotional materials and does not actually follow normal, non-spammy, ways of sending email marketing. Cause if you aren’t admitting for your company that this is the case, you should have perhaps stated such.
Spammer is as spammer does, and Newegg is now a spammer in my eyes. Mistakes can happen, I will grant that.
Using purchased lists is never a mistake but an abuse.
Mike,
That’s a bit harsh. Using purchased lists is an abuse if you keep doing it. It could be a mistake if you did it, learned that it was a mistake, and never did it again. There’s some vast room for grey in there, of course, but to be so absolute as to say that it is “never” a mistake is a bit extreme.
It is too easy to forget that the average company has approximately zero expertise with e-mail marketing, and that there is a lot of conflicting and contradictory information out on the net, depending on who posted it and what their agenda is.
That said, of course you can always vote with your feet, and as a bonus it can even be for any reason at all, or no reason at all. I certainly don’t appreciate spam, and the typical corporate brush-off that you’ve received is of course frustrating. Thanks for sharing your Newegg experience. You’ve provided useful and valuable information in the past, and I’ll be factoring your experience into future purchasing decisions. Hopefully Newegg will reconsider.