Today brought home the issue of electronic clutter even more so than usual. I have way too many emails as it is, but today I got bombed with spam marketing emails. And when I mean bombed, I mean like at least 50 this morning alone. From somewhere new. Not the usual emails from companies from which I’ve purchased things.
I mean like from I have no idea where. NO. CLUE. Except, after a while, I did notice they were all sent from the exact same email address.
Hmmm.
So I strolled on over to the website the email exchange suggested. This is what I got, a blank screen other than:
redt4 OK
So, I googled “redt4 OK” and “jcpenneyme.com” which is the exchange in the email address.
I’m not totally tech savvy, but from what I can tell this is a website that basically spams their targets with marketing emails. And, apparently, it pays because whoever is running it is getting daily revenue of $107. For spamming people.
Nice.
Unsubscribe. Unsubscribe. Unsubscribe.
Except requesting unsubscribe takes anywhere from 3-10 days, depending on which email has been sent. So I’ll be getting emails for Hydrolize so I can visibly reduce under-eye circles and bags, free credit scores, and QuiBids (Shocking! Blow Out Auctions Save Users Up to 95% Off Retail!), among others, for the next week and a half. And in the time it took me to type that sentence I got FIVE MORE AMAZING OFFERS!
Not only did I click the unsubscribe button on eleventy billion emails, I also sent an email to the email address demanding via a message in ALL CAPS asking very politely to be removed from all of their lists, and then I registered with DMA CHOICE which allows you to opt out of receiving direct marketing materials both through regular mail and email.
Because I don’t want to Shop Now Pay Later With Fingerhut Credit.
Yeah, unless you’re sure that the spam is from someone reputable (e.g., it’s from Neiman Marcus and you just don’t want the advertising any more), then clicking “unsubscribe” is pretty much guaranteed to add you to a bunch MORE spam lists. All you’ve done is verified to the spammers that you’re someone who opens and reads spam. So your address is even more valuable when sold.
Noooooooo! Really? Gah, just shoot me now. But, good to know. So thanks.
I was going to say the same thing. Since you never subscribed in the first place, you don’t need to unsubscribe. NEVER click on any links in an email you think might be spam. Just delete it add address to spam folder as others said. Links in spam emails may lead to virus downloads or access to your computer for someone if you click on them. This has been drummed into my by my Techie hubby! lol. Safest way is, if you don’t know the address it is from, delete.
is that the same if you just open it? I opened a few emails from ‘fingerhut’ spam to get the headers to report to gmail – but it crashed two of my laptops and even completely destroyed one of the hard drives so now i have to get a new one. Im scared to even open them now to even just report them.
The other option, depending on the email client you are using, is to hunt around and find the ‘block sender’ and ‘report spam’ options – which may not be called that, but they will be called something similar. Again – depending on your email service, these will either send spam straight to the bin or send it to the bin and report it to your service, allowing them to block the sender from accessing any account using that service.
Yeah, I would definitely mark it as spam so that your email provider can (hopefully) send all future emails right to your spam box.
you could add a filter so they go straight to the trash