I finally bought a Thalia capo a few weeks ago. They started spamming me several times a week. I’m getting hilarious messages like It’s been a while since we’ve seen you…
How many capos do they think I’ll buy in a lifetime? A high end capo is something you might buy for a couple guitars. Now I got this 600 lb gorilla on my back forever.
Bed Bath and Beyond suckered me into a Beyond+ membership. I was buying over $200 and the membership got me about 20% off. But, the discount purchased the annual membership dues. So I really saved nothing. I thought I’d use the Beyond+ a handful of times in a year.
Bed Bath and Beyond spammed me incessantly ever since. I’m so disgusted that I may never visit that store again.
Now, once a month I search my inbox for these two companies. Select All and delete that bullshit.
That’s easier then deleting every time some of their garbage rolls in.
eBags. How often do they think i need new luggage?
All Modern. How often do they think I need new furniture?
An adult store that sells sex toys. How often do I need new sex toys?
I didn’t even buy anything from 4 Wheel Parts (just looked at the website), but goddamn! Full inbox with offers for overpriced bullshit! Every damn day.
Someone out there thinks they have the same email address as I do, so I get email from a sporting goods store they shop at and notifications from their cell phone provider that their bill is due.
This was decades before the internet and spam, but my grandfather suffered a similar fate when he had a company install new windows in his house. He had them replace literally every last one, but somehow they kept calling him twice per week for months afterwards to give him the hard sell. He wondered aloud what they thought they could possibly sell him, since they’d already replaced every one of his windows.
There’s at least once business (maybe a few others) that I’ve emailed them to specifically say that I was unsubscribing for this very reason. This is a reputable place, local to me. They would typically send out emails about once a week or so, but a few years back decided (and published this in one of them) that they were going to send out an email every day for the next 90 days to get everyone really hyped up about a big event. After a few weeks, I stopped opening the emails (a lot were duplicates or not really related), about a month later I unsubscribed and told them that I’m likely not the only person unsubscribing because of this new campaign and a lot of people, myself included probably won’t remember to resub after the event has passed.
Anyways, back to the OP, this is exactly what a junk mail address is for. Set up some email address for websites that you really never want to hear from again, but you need an email to use, then never check it (or check in once a week). It becomes an out of sight, out of mind thing.
As for cookies and trackers, use private/incognito mode. It has it’s limitations, but if you, for example, go to see how much a flight is while in private mode, the next to you do that the website won’t know you were just doing the same thing a few days earlier.
You can also manually delete your cookies/history/cache.
I know it does. Big companies, at least. I unsubscribe from stuff all the time. Anyone who uses MailChimp or ConstantContact (most companies) is going to comply, as well, because they’ll be shut down by their mail provider if they don’t.
I always liked the ‘people who bought that, also bought these items’. No, the person that bought a garbage can did not also buy 6 other garbage cans. At least say ‘here are some similar items’. I don’t mind similar items. In fact, I don’t really mind going to Amazon and seeing items ‘inspired by my browsing history [on Amazon]’ right there on the front page. However, I really wish they’d stop suggesting items to be that are ‘inspired by’ something I already bought.
eBay really annoys me. If I have something on watch, or for sale, I want to be on top of all related activity. But if I allow those kind of eBay emails, I have to allow all eBay emails, which are a flood of junk totally unrelated to my watch or sale. If I flag eBay as a spam site, I miss the watch or people placing orders for my stuff unless I check the spam folder frequently. I can’t win.
Aside: whenever I buy from any vendor that I think is likely to send me ANY email EVER, I use a yahoo address that I have for just that purpose. All my spammy offers go there, not to my main email. This includes internet shopping, as well as stores that ask you for an email when you check out. I usually don’t give an email at the checkout, but some do have good coupons, like BB&B and DSW (Designer Shoe Warehouse). I always give my yahoo address.
I’ve been having a problem with that as well. I bought something for my daughter for Christmas (so, 7 months ago) and I still get a few emails a week about similar items going on sale, about to end, reduced price etc.
The worse, in my opinion, is car dealerships. If you email them, even just to ask someone a question, you’ll be on their spam list. IME, no amount of clicking the unsubscribe button will remove you. I’ve found two ways to get removed from their lists 1)Call them, every.single.time, and asked to be removed. They’ll say ‘you just have to click the button’ and I respond ‘I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work, so I’m just going to call you each time and ask to be taken off’. 2)Reply to the email, asking to be removed from the list that you didn’t sign up for, but CC their name into the “to” field dozens of times. It’ll flood their email.
I’ve found both of these to be effective.
In the end, it’s simpler just to set up a new email specifically for buying a car. Then I don’t stress about my regular address getting wrecked and when I’m done, I forget all about it.
And they’ll still call you. Nothing will ever get them to stop. I’ve told the previous dealership that I live 1500 miles away now and please stop calling me. Yet, every 6 months I get a call. I assume the salespeople are forced by a relentless sales manager to call every ‘lead’ every few months, regardless how cold it might be.
One of them around here calls our work number every few months. It’s an automated call telling [the random person that answers the phone] that it’s time for an oil change. There’s no way to get to a person, so I had to call them and ask them to knock it off. In addition to that, I blocked their number and told them I report all of these calls to the FTC.
About 3 years later I got a random call from an out of state cell phone asking for [the person that bought that car] to let me know he’s got some great deals right now and I should stop down. He seemed taken aback when I told him they need to stop with all the calls, that I’m reporting it to the ftc and ‘could you please take my number off your list’.
Similarly, I had a dealbreaker issue with one dealership where I stood up and walked about just as I was about to start signing the contracts. A few years later I started getting cold calls from them. When I asked why they were calling me, IIRC, they wanted to see ‘if I was still in the market for a new car’. She seemed surprised when I told her that was years ago, it’s not like the lost the sale the day before.
