3 On Your Side: Unsubscribing To Emails
By Jim Donovan
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Is your email overloaded with offers that you don't really want or even care to read? With a click or two most of us just unsubscribe. But 3 On Your Side Consumer Reporter Jim Donovan finds that in some cases unsubscribing may have the opposite effect of what you intended.
When you unsubscribe from a web site mailing list you expect to get less spam and junk filling your inbox. But as Marquise Gordon found, it's not always that simple.
He says, "These companies saying, you know, get loans fast, get cash fast, all the time I get them, and I unsubscribe and what will happen I will end up just getting more of the same emails."
And he's not alone. In fact some scam artists are hoping you'll click unsubscribe in response to an offer they're sending you.
"What you are doing is authenticating that yours is a good email and then it gets sold or given to many others and really what you end up doing is multiplying the number of these spam and sometimes scam emails that you'll get," according to Claire Rosenzweig of the Better Business Bureau.
Your email address is so valuable that people have even set up sites to mimic the Federal Trade Commissions Do Not Call List with a Do Not Email List.
But as Rosenzweig points out, there is just one problem. She says, "Those that claim there is a Do-Not-Email registry - No, there is no such thing. Those are people that through those emails are trying to get you to click.
So if you want to unsubscribe from real established sites, like a big department store or retailer, follow their instructions. But when you are confronted with suspected spam -- like an offer from a company you've never heard of -- don't click, just delete.
