Jonathan Kamens 86 47
#TechIsShitDispatch
I receive marketing #spam from Thrift Savings Plan, a.k.a. #TSP, the 401k-like thing that federal government employees participate in.
I've never been particularly interested in TSP spam, but I tolerated it while I was a participant. However, DOGE fired me a year ago and I'm no longer a federal employee, and I recently finally got around to closing my TSP account and rolling over its contents into an IRA, so now I really want to unsubscribe. (1/6)
Feb 21 at 3:00amWeb
Show threadJonathan Kamens 86 47Feb 21
I look at the bottom of the TSP spam. There's no unsubscribe link or instructions.
I look on the TSP website. I can see no mechanism there for opting out of marketing spam without also telling TSP they can't send me account-related emails.
I email TSP and ask how to unsubscribe. (2/6)
Show threadJonathan Kamens 86 47Feb 21
They reply: "Please note any option to unsubscribe would be at the bottom of the email in the form of a clickable link. On the following page you will be prompted to update your email preferences and unsubscribe from the Thrift Savings Plan Newsletter. If you can't unsubscribe, you can mark the email as spam or junk. We apologize for any inconvenience this procedure may cause you."
Wow, that is some serious bullshit. (3/6)
Show threadJonathan Kamens 86 47Feb 21
I reply: (4/6)
Show threadJonathan Kamens 86 47Feb 21
Then I go digging around in the headers of the spam and find a List-Unsubscribe header. I visit that URL, and lo and behold I am able to unsubscribe. After doing so it explicitly tells me that this will only affect bulk emails and I will continue to receive personal account-related emails.
They could and should have put an unsubscribe link in the footer of the emails.
And they could and should have told me when I asked that I could unsubscribe using the URL in the header.
smdh (5/6)
Show threadJonathan Kamens 86 47Feb 21
(Next time something like this happens maybe I will remember to look for the hidden List-Unsubscribe header before I waste time trying to get useful information about how to unsubscribe from the entity spamming me, because as we've seen here, more often than not that's a pointless exercise.) (6/6)