5 years ago someone (I cannot remember who) recommended an online service to me that curates wine suggestions based on questions about your personality.
I like wine and this service was recommended, right? So I went online to look it up.
Right away, I was hesitant. Because the first thing they ask for is your email address. I normally don’t like that (indicator they’ll spam you, in case you’re wondering why). But this one was recommended so I figured–hey, why not? Maybe I’ll do the survey and they’ll recommend great wines and it’ll be a match made in heaven!
So I did the survey. I don’t remember how long it took me, but I do remember it was a lot of questions.
At the end of the survey they recommended three bottles of wine. This was not a slow, take-time-to-analyze-your-answers kind of thing. This was a practically instant result. Meaning this was probably a computer generated response to whatever I had input. I was feeling even more unsure of this company now but I took a look at the recs. I had literally heard of NONE of these wines, so I opened a second browser tab and did some research. The vineyards they were recommending were small (cool) but not exactly local. I have no problem with that … except that the shipping was more than the bottle cost. Two of the bottles were also blends I’d never had before. I was a bit hesitant to jump into a new blend totally blind when it was a really pricey bottle of wine. So I closed both tabs and the next time we were at our local wine store we searched out that blend. The store didn’t have the vineyard that was recommended but they did have another vineyard we like with that same blend. We bought it. We drank it. We weren’t impressed.
No hard feelings, right? At this point it didn’t cost me the rather high cost of the bottles and shipping and I’d only spent a little time. I wasn’t worried. In fact, I pretty much forgot about the whole experience and went back to the wines we enjoy that are reasonably priced. When we want to splurge, we have an Arizona winery that makes our absolute favorite.
Then the emails started. The first one came about a month after I had originally gone to the website. “Your cart is still waiting and those deals we curated are about to expire.” Oops, I’d forgotten to cancel that all out. I clicked over, emptied my cart, looked for a way to delete my profile and account (which I couldn’t find) and logged out.
A week later. “A new month has dawned. Get your curated wine recommendations today.” Marked as spam, deleted.
Three weeks later. “Your cart is still waiting and those deals we curated are about to expire.” Nope. I’m not falling for that. I have nothing in my cart. There are no deals waiting for me. I didn’t click it. I marked it as spam.
It has been 5 years. FIVE YEARS. Those emails still come as regular as clockwork. They keep warning me (in various stages of capital letters like this is serious business) that my special deals are “expiring”. They have warned me that “my profile is about to expire” (I actually hope that one is true). They have invited me to click for a “special coupon” (no idea what that was, I didn’t click it).
I have marked all of them as spam. Sometimes that solves the problem for a few weeks. But they eventually get through again. (No, I don’t know how that works. I’m not someone who codes for spammers). I have not, since that first email, clicked back to the website. I have not put any more information into the site. I have merely ignored them, marked them as spam, and deleted them. Most of the emails I don’t even open or read past the subject line, honestly.
My point is this: I don’t care who recommends it. Follow good spam policies. Don’t give your email address out to random companies. Don’t click the links.
Also, if you’re the person who recommended this wine service, I truly hope you’re enjoying those bottles of wine. If you feel like floating me $100 a month, I’ll pick up bottles you’ll probably like at the store instead. I can do three bottles a month for $100, no problem. Actually if you live near me I can beat that price because I’m not even going to charge you shipping. I’ll just drive them to your house. Look at that, you just cut your monthly wine cost IN HALF.
Spams are stupid and spam email is frustrating. End rant.
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