Newsletter Hell

On August 6, 2010, in Blogosphere, Fun With Email, by Henshaw

I’ve had the darnedest time unsubscribing from LA Progressive’s newsletters. I know, I know… how did I get subscribed in the first place? I left a couple of comments on some really idiotic posts and evidently the webmaster automatically subscribed everyone with an email address to their newsletter. It wouldn’t even be that annoying if the unsubscribe would have worked. This went on for months, with two of my email address. Today they finally honored my request. Here’s the exchange.

from Dick and Sharon
to Michael Henshaw
date Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 3:09 PM
subject Re: unsubscribe

Michael,

We unsubscribed this address.
Care to tell us why you’re leaving?

– Dick Price, Editor

Here’s is my response. I think it sums it up quite well.

Dick,

I never signed up for your newsletter. A few months ago I had the terrible misfortune of reading an article on your site that was attempting to draw comparisons between Avatar and the Iraq War. I decided to leave a comment. Obviously, this is where I made a mistake because at some point you decided to start sending newsletters to everyone who has ever commented.

How do I know this you might ask? Well, according to Google I left another comment on your site with a different email address in Feb. 2009. I know, right? I’m shocked that I stumbled onto your site twice as well. Anyway, you have also been spamming that email address.

Poor site design and IT practices aren’t that uncommon so I really don’t mind, but your annoying newsletter doesn’t even have a way to unsubscribe. Sure, you have an “unsubscribe button” but it leads to a page that doesn’t do anything. It’s a lot like ObamaCare. “Progressives” feel great that they’ve passed “something” but ultimately it’s like your unsubscribe page. In other words, it’s worthless.

Finally, in order to unsubscribe I had to track down your direct email address.

If it were only so easy to contact our representatives and unsubscribe from their “progressive” polices.

Thanks for unsubscribing me.

Michael Henshaw

Tagged with:
 

5 Responses to Newsletter Hell

  1. [...] Sports « Newsletter Hell [...]

  2. Peter Reaper says:

    I too am receiving unwanted newsletters from laprogressiveDOTcom. I have been unable to unsubscribe and unable to find the admin’s e-mail address. Could you please give me the e-mail address so I too can request to be unsubscribed from that unwanted and annoying newsletter? Thanks !!!

    PS. I think my previous comments didn’t go through because your comment thingy is blocking comments that contain web addresses. I understand the reasoning, but … it’s still unfortunate.

  3. Henshaw says:

    Peter, to unsubscribe email dick_and_sharonATyahooDOTcom and ask to unsubscribe.

  4. Peter Reaper says:

    Thanks for the e-mail address to unsubscribe from the LA Progressive newsletter.

    Dick asked me: “Care to tell us why you’re departing?” Here’s a copy of my e-mail response to him:

    Hi Dick:

    The reason I am unsubscribing is that I found very little of use in the newsletter. There is too much demonizing of conservatives while espousing too many generalities and acknowledging too few honestly considered factual criteria. In short: it’s too partisan without enough substance.

    Also, here’s a copy&paste of someone else who had the misfortune of not being able to unsubscribe to the newsletter:

    “Poor site design and IT practices aren’t that uncommon so I really don’t mind, but your annoying newsletter doesn’t even have a way to unsubscribe. Sure, you have an “unsubscribe button” but it leads to a page that doesn’t do anything. It’s a lot like ObamaCare. “Progressives” feel great that they’ve passed “something” but ultimately it’s like your unsubscribe page. In other words, it’s worthless.

    Finally, in order to unsubscribe I had to track down your direct email address.”

    That was two whole months ago, and you still haven’t fixed it! Why? That (in)action is highly disrespectful, infuriating, and condescending to not let your visitors decide whether they want to (continue to) receive your newsletter?

    Anyhow, thanks for unsubscribing me.

    I hope they really did unsubscribe me…

  5. [...] months ago I wrote about my unfortunate issue with LA Progressives’ newsletter hell. I thought I was out, but just like Michael Corleone they’ve “pulled me back in.” [...]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>