And the award for unsubscribe function that’s so bad it’s illegal goes to … drum roll please … TracFone!
A reader who wishes to remain anonymous recently bought minutes on a Tracfone for his wife.
“As part of the purchase process they asked for an e-mail address,” the reader wrote in an e-mail to this newsletter. “I had not given it to them before, but had a brain fart and did. There was no indication that I would begin to receive e-mail promotions from them, but I have—about three to four a week. At first I just deleted them, but today I figured I would tried the unsubscribe feature.”
And after he clicked on the unsubscribe link, what did he get? Why, a page forcing him to enter his phone’s serial number in order to opt out.
“Don’t know your serial number?” a link on the page asks. Taking a wild guess here, the answer to that question 100% of the time—with the lone exception of the guy who has an obsessive cell-phone-serial-number-memorization compulsion—would be: ‘Yes, I don’t know my serial number.’
Clicking on the “don’t-know-your-serial-number” link results in the following explanatory copy:
“To obtain the serial number simply remove the battery from your wireless phone. The serial number is the 11 or 15 digit number located on the white sticker on the back of the phone. The serial number will be after the letters ‘ESN’,’IMEI’.‘SN’,‘DEC’, or ‘Serial No’.
“For some Motorola and Nokia phone models you can also find the serial number on your TracFone display. To find the serial number, press Menu and select the Prepaid menu. Scroll down to My ESN, IMEI or Serial No. and press Select, if necessary.”
Can anyone explain what is wrong with requiring a customer to enter a product’s serial number in order to opt out of the company’s e-mail program? Anyone? Anyone?
Why yes! Not only is it very customer-service unfriendly, it’s illegal!
Under Federal Trade Commission Can Spam updates that took effect last July, marketers must offer would-be unsubscribers a one-page opt-out function or a simple reply mechanism in order to be removed from their lists.
That means no logins, no passwords and certainly no serial numbers.
One would think a company the size of Tracfone would have at least one lawyer educated enough on e-mail marketing to know this.
Two e-mails to the company have not been answered.
