The MacAlba

Do you sometimes get SPAM email that isn’t intended to be SPAM (although that’s always debatable)?

On a sadly more and more frequent basis I receive emails from reputable companies telling me that I’ve been selected to receive a free subscription to something or other - usually a magazine, an audio book - or special discount offer. I usually ignore these emails (if my anti-SPAM filter hasn’t already consigned them to the Junk folder) as I’m wary of such offers in the first place.

Of late, though, I’ve fallen for a couple of freebie offers - the magazines and source emails and web sites given are, after all, quite reputable. So to the crunch. Remembering that I’ve been personally selected to receive the goods (as if), I go to sign up — only to be told at that point that the offer is only valid in the USA. Don’t these guys get a clue from my work email address, the one with the .au on the end, that I’m not in the USofA? Haven’t these reputable companies gone to the trouble of filtering the country codes from the data they’ve already collected from me? I can only assume that they’re lazy - it’s easier to just blast email at everybody than actually do some work and remove those addresses that aren’t part of the target group.

I do the only thing I can — I remember the due consideration they’ve (not) given to me as a potential customer and reward them by not purchasing anything from them unless I really have to. A small gesture, I know, but at least I feel a bit better.