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Topic: iUniverse = relentless spammer
| Author | Message |
| freetrialer | Posted – 11/19/2008 2:27:56 PM | show profile Executive summary: don't give iUniverse your email address. Detailed version follows. So, I asked iUniverse for their free guide to self-publishing (a PDF). In the information box, I put this for details of my project: "Please don't contact me, I will contact you if I am interested. At this point I just wanted the PDF guide. Please note that I respond poorly to sales solicitations that follow my stating in plain English, "Please don't contact me."" So, they add me to their list and I get a followup email. I write back to ask to be removed, and I get an email from a real human - which includes the basic sales pitch guilt trip (I'm just trying to help you...): "I'm not sure who you sent an intial email to or when that was sent but rest assured, we don't need to contact you and will not in the future. I do it as a service to authors and will be happy to let you find your own way through the publishing world. Most people who ask for help getting published appreciate a person being available to work with them and find my service helpful rather than feeling like a sales pitch. I'm sorry to bother you." So, I write back: "Thank you. It's nothing personal - I filled out your Web form to receive an informational PDF, and received a reply stating that you would contact me. I wrote back to that customer service email address and asked that they not contact me. (I will forward that message to you.) My point is that I think your company should be flexible enough in its practices so that you don't send a sales pitch to someone who explicitly asks not to receive a sales pitch. Please forward that comment to your management, as I imagine I'm not the only one who is turned off by receiving an automated sales pitch when they expressly ask not to." ... and I remove myself from their mailing list on their Web site again. So, what do I get? ...two more spam emails, one of them from the company, and one of them from the gentleman who replied to my initial request. Something is seriously wrong if a company can't figure out that someone who writes "Ionlywantthepdf" as their town, and who explicitly asks them not to pitch to them three times, is NOT INTERESTED in a sales pitch. Why would I trust them with my book, if I can't trust them with my email address? |
