Some years ago someone I know left UK2, in fact it was around the same time that I left. Well with what comes as little to no surprise they have just received yet another email from them. Apparently sent from newsletter@uk2.net with a reply to of comeback_newsletter@uk2.net and a subject of Claim your voucher today!
They do provide an oh so un-useful un-subscribe link in the email, which points to an unknown server: http://tr1.bp28.net/ however the rest of the links do in fact link to www.uk2.net. Even if the person I know would be daft enough to try and un-subscribe, going to a totally unknown URL is something they definitely would not do.
When a customer leaves UK2 they are not given an option to un-subscribe from these mailings, and shouldn’t even be subscribed to them. This is spam. This is wrong, and it should be illegal – oh wait it probably is.
This is surprisingly common and can be immensely annoying. Equally annoying is that businesses can get away with it. Happy as I’ve been as an Orange customer, it took me around ten attempts to successfully unsubscribe from their newsletter because their unsubscribe was knackered.
You have to remember that when I originally left them I tried to unsubscribe, but you had to log in to your account to do that – which of course I no longer had.
The person mentioned has since used the un-subscribe link – but past experience makes me think it will be pot luck as to whether it will be successful.
I like that message from orange – it says it failed, but also tells you it takes upto 28 days to unsubscribe. Of course my feelings about why companies state 28 days is another blog post all on its own.
I am a UK2 customer and have mixed feeling about their whole business, however email spam is not one of the problems I have had from them (surprisingly ??).
I have done a lot of email marketing for my business and can in SOME ways understand when mistakes creep in to the process. I migrated my full list across to a different bulk email provider and a software error caused some of my opt-outs to be opted back in. WOW, did I feel the full force of their complaints – seriously it was like I had killed somebody!!!
The fact is when you catch somebody on a bad day this kind of error is incredibly frustrating and I feel people’s pain on this. I am generally thankful that most companies do get in right most of the time.