Report Business When Their System Is Unable To Unsubscribe?

[vindicator]

3 spams from a major, well-known business of which I AM a customer.

I opted out of all communications through the online account access.

First spam: I click "unsubscribe" in their valid (in that it was from them) email spam. Their system does not seem to like the VALID special character in the email address. Go figure that my account uses that same address and they will send to the address, but just won't unsubscribe with it (stupid programmers).

I chat (and transcript) with them online about it, and after pulling teeth, they end up saying "I will unsubscribe your email address from marketing and spam emails." ... "It should be within 24 hours effect".

Second spam(3 days later): I chat with them again and am told "I will ensure to get this added for you on the list of emails that won't be receiving any kind of spam" and ... "I have verified that partial changes were made on the account but not completely turning off the spam notification for the email on the account" and ... "I do saw that the notification over the mail was discontinued and I made the corrections so that you won't be getting anymore spam email on your email"

Third spam (6 days later): Got some bite back from this person when I called them out when they said "I can guarantee you that we did not send any email or texts." and I called them a liar. They were so offended and I asked what would be more applicable and suggested ignorant. Their claim was based solely on flags in a database field that clearly weren't followed based on the proof that I had. No way can they make that "guarantee". In the end they say "This was not investigated before as the previous case created is to put your account on to the do not solicit list-- no mention of you still receiving messages after the request was granted" (curious given the request was made with the first spam, was it not....?).

I had mentioned that if spams would continue that I would report it to spamcop and the FTC. I may chat with the FTC about it when they open later this morning, but the business investigation is said to reach a conclusion on the 5th, so I MAY hold off until then (or the next spam).

Incompetence must not be rewarded and I've been saving the spam to report them all later. Report them into a blacklist-oblivion/fined.

Now, am I missing something here? Surely my expectation of not receiving marketing from them is reasonable, particularly when I'm given the option to unsubscribe. As well as making them accountable when they do not resolve the issue.

[Lking]

Poor programing is rampant and database management is a pain IMHO.  Frustrating as this is belligerence is seldom productive.

Have you submitted these email to SC, not to report but to use the parser.  After the parser does its work you can look at the provided source information and then cancel the report.  This would be a way to validate that the business is in fact the source; There is a possibility that their DB has been compromised. In this day and age that possibility is just as likely as their incompetence.

[vindicator]

I didn't use the SC parser since I looked at the mail source/headers. It's beyond abundantly clear (spf, dkim, dmarc, nslookup of domain/links) that it was from the business.

I did chat with the FTC, but it was a most odd "conversation". I even asked if "it" was a bot because of the responses.

*I WILL wait for the next spam arriving after their investigative deadline on May 5th, but want to make sure it would be acceptable to submit the spam (and previous ones) to SC if it persists. If you would rather I didn't submit it here, I shall not. However, I will still submit to the FTC and flag the emails as spam. The thing that I'm aware of is if the domain DOES get blacklisted, then their billing won't be coming through either. Though I expect their email administrators would be on it for any bounce-backs or if they monitor the blacklists (which I expect they would based on what they do).

Boy-oh-boy, if the likelihood of compromise equates to incompetence, nearly every business I deal with is screwed (unless you're referring to backend incompetence as opposed to frontend support personnel, which is what I am going to assume).

What you deem to be belligerence, and they consider rude, I consider to be incontrovertible point of fact of the specific instance ("liar" vs "ignorant" wording is questionable). It's like people simply don't want to be told they're wrong in which case nothing changes. You don't reward/pat-on-the-back failures. You acknowledge and correct. I'm most aware of my mistakes/failures because I strive for perfection. And I expect/hope that if I'm unaware I'm wrong, that I will be told.

I'm under the belief that if I keep pressing them, hammering on the obvious failure, explain the consequence, that they will actually put in the effort to correct the problem. If I said nothing to their "guarantee" response, they would be deluded in the idea they are correct and nothing is wrong with their system, thus no fix to the problem.