Disappointing
Posted on Saturday, November 15th, 2008 at 2:48pm. #
I got the above email from Absolute yesterday.
In English, the text reads:
Because you gave us your email address, but you deliberately unsubscribed from our newsletter in the past, we’ve decided that we don’t respect you, so we’ve resubscribed you anyway, even though the Data Protection Act and common decency would tend to suggest that we behave differently. Tough shit, sucker!
I thought Absolute Radio was different. Seems I was wrong. Sigh.
(Mind, at least the unsubscribe code works, and that it offers you the chance to delete all of your information, not just unsubscribe again. Wonder who wrote that code. Cough.)
Later … as I note in the comments, after less than 90 days, Absolute Radio isn’t famous in anything; poor copywriting.
But perhaps more irritating: I just realised that I have never entered any competition on Absolute Radio. I have entered some on Virgin Radio (for testing purposes): but none on Absolute. So, if I was a lapsed listener and missed the Absolute rebrand (highly likely), this would have been a pretty unpleasant start to a relationship. It is actually saying “You don’t know us, but we’re planning on sending you email every week”. Thousands of people will be hitting the ‘report spam’ button right now; causing untold damage to the station’s email. This is worse than I thought.
That is disappointing but sadly not unusual. Today you only need to sign up to a few so called reputable companies and you end up with an inbox of spam.
The one I find most annoying is a large British telecoms company (that I am not a customer of) who keep sending me mail and calling me up despite my constant requests for it to stop.
I do take some comfort in the fact that that those who respect their policies, and for that matter the law, will benefit from the bad image their competitors have generated for themselves.