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One man’s tragically doomed quest to get off Best Buy’s spam email list

Updated Dec 19th, 2018 9:02PM EST
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Dealing with spam offers from retailers is one of the more annoying components of managing email these days but for the most part you can make them go away by unsubscribing to them. Note how we said, “For the most part.” Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin found himself on Best Buy’s official email list and he did the sensible thing most people do and tried to unsubscribe. It didn’t work. Then he tried complaining directly to Best Buy, whose representatives promised to remove him from the list. That also didn’t work. As a result, his inbox still looked like this after multiple complaints:

FROM EARLIER: How Gawker completely disgusted everyone on the Internet

Eventually, Brodkin decided to tell Best Buy that he planned to write a story about their remarkable inability to stop spamming him and the spamming magically stopped. The company told him that being continually spammed despite unsubscribing was an “isolated incident” that was somehow unsolvable until it realized he was a professional journalist.

If you find yourself trapped in Best Buy’s email list hell, we recommend talking to Brodkin about it because it sounds like he’s eager to discover whether this kind of “mistake” really is as rare as Best Buy claims. You can find his contact information and read his whole story on getting off Best Buy’s List of the Damned by clicking here.

Brad Reed
Brad Reed Staff Writer

Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.