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A Consumer Awareness piece….
I received an unwanted email the other day about the movie, The Grey, starring Liam Neeson. It’s not that I am not interested in either the movie or the actor, but rather, it was the persistent source where I received the email from that aggravated the living (your favorite expletive goes here.) out of me.
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The other day I was given an opportunity to attend a free movie screening… I’m not quite sure how I got this offer, but to be able to have a chance to get these tickets I had to sign up at ‘http://www.gofobo.com‘
Sure, great, no problem…
If you value the sanity of your email inbox, DON’T ****ING DO IT!
I signed up and then found out there were no more tickets available for what got me to the site. OK, whatever.
But before the day was up, I lost count at how many emails I received from the website regarding various “conversations.”
Mind you… all I did was sign up. I didn’t go clicking on any conversation, no BB “discussion” or anything. They just started piling updates into my inbox.
So thinking, like almost any other service one signs up for, I logged back in and looked for my communications options. I found the options and and unchecked all email options, and checked the box that said remove from all discussions.
There… I was done and now I can move forward .
NOT!
Some new threads (I’m guessing) popped up on the site and I was happily apprised of these threads.
Now, I’m getting aggravated.
Not only is the interface to customize your account a bit convoluted, I could not find anywhere on the site where I can cancel my account.
Wow… seriously?
It turns out, with enough digging… no wait, scratch that. I had to go outside the website and do a Google search to find out that there’s no ‘cancel account’ option anywhere on the site. You have to contact them through their “contact us” page and request the option to cancel your account.
So a few days and 24 emails later, (regardless of what communications option I have chosen), I’m going to try this new avenue because to be honest, I already get enough emails and to add to my collection of emails with more, about subjects I’m not even interested in just rubs me the wrong way.
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Suggestions for Dealing With GoFobo
If you must try this curious service that says they provide free movie screenings, here are my thoughts:
One: don’t.
Two: If you only have one email account, I’d set up a rule that stuffs the emails in some protected or out of the way folder. (Like the trash!)
Three: Set up an alternate email account that you can use to sign up for contests and crap like this… Then it won’t matter how much email you get… maybe. Then again, your alternate email account will get overwhelmed with GoFobo updates and it might be a moot point if it crowds out your other email content, taking us back to suggestion Two!
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Thus ends another consumer alert!
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
My favorite expletive is “shit”.
Also! Here’s a tip when signing up for “free” stuff on the interwubs. If you have gmail, so that’d be EVERYONE, all you have to do is add a tag to the email address you give them.
What the hell do you mean, jjfs85!? I’ll tell you. Let’s say your email address is randomuser@gmail.com and you want to sign up for a “free” ipad offer from some seedy website like myipad4free.com (yes, it’s a real site) but you want to avoid the spamming that will inevitably ensue. Give them the address randomuser+spam@gmail.com. The emails will still go to your inbox BUT now you can setup a nice easy filter that’ll auto-shitcan anything sent with “+spam” in the header’s “to” field. You can use any tag, not just “+spam”. You could use “+idiot” or “+brusimm” or whatever. It’s really useful.
Alternatively and more easily, you can sign up for a new gmail address JUST for spammy stuff and then never check it again (unless you want to).
Well, yes, that’s one fairly common option, though I do try to keep this website family friendly damnit!!! LOL.
Hi Bruce,
We’re sorry to hear you had a negative experience with your initial foray into gofobo. We’re currently looking into why a new user would receive so many emails, especially after they opted out of receiving any emails outside of ones related to the screening they registered for.
We hope you’ll stick around and attend screenings in the future, but if you’d still like to delete your account I can do so.
Regards,
Chris @ gofobo
I think it’s time I took Chris up on his offer to kill my account. I’m saying that because I have received yet another update email from GOFOBO. Amazing at the amount of noise I get from an account that I supposedly have my email updates turned off on. -Bruce
Sorry again, Bruce. Can you email me your user name? I’m at chris at gofobo dot com
I’ll go ahead and delete your account.
I’ll try to get one out today… but would it shock you to see my account name to be Brusimm, with my B as an avatar??? LOL. Thanks Chris.
Your account has been deleted.
Thanks for your time in this Chris… appreciate it.
Will you please delete my account. i don’t want it, i receive around 20 e-mails a day and I am getting tired of it. my user name is.
This site is an independent website reporting the consumer experience. You need to go to Fobo and follow the directions on how to get your account deactivated…