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I'd say about 15-25% of Meetup's revenue comes from people who don't know they are still paying for a group, because its a subscription that only gets billed on
by pers0n 3y ago
I'd say about 15-25% of Meetup's revenue comes from people who don't know they are still paying for a group, because its a subscription that only gets billed once every 6 months. So many groups are dead. Before the pandemic it might of been maybe 5-10% but afterwards its much much higher.
Odds are anyone you unsubscribe from will spam you in a newsletter. Even if you opt out, you'll be re-added a year or 2 later. I've learned to use certain gmail for certain sites/services to prevent them spamming up my personal domain emails.
I really hope they make it 1 click to cancel as a law, I've had to call in my CC as stolen at least 2 or 3 times to end something or to prevent some trial period from charging me.
- shiftpgdn 3y agoI switched to using a custom domain + catchall email setup. So when I go to a retail store that requires an email to get a receipt, I just give them STORENAME@mycustomdomain.com and it will get delivered into my inbox. Retailers that don't honor the unsubscribe button just get the email address created and then set to bounceback as undeliverable. This also does a great job of catching data leaks or willful sale of client and customer data.
- Gigachad 3y agoYeah but you look really weird trying to give this email in person or over the phone. I used to do that but these days I just set up a filter rule to move emails from their domain to junk. Most stuff that comes from email leaks gets caught but the spam filter already.
- hammyhavoc 3y agoAn email address is an email address. Who cares if it looks weird? It's far more weird to sell someone's data or not respect if they wish to be contacted. If necessary, blag it. Walmart? `wallace.martin@yourdomain.suffix`.
- londons_explore 3y agoThere are more and more sites that now demand you use a hotmail/outlook/bigco email address. If you try to use your own domain, they'll say "sorry, you need to use your personal email for this - for business use contact our sales department".
- hammyhavoc 3y agoThen use the `+` system on them and forward your emails wherever you want them to ultimately be stored. https://gmail.googleblog.com/2008/03/2-hidden-ways-to-get-more-from-your.html?m=1 https://gmail.googleblog.com/2008/03/2-hidden-ways-to-get-mo... Works on outlook.com addresses too.
- dspillett 3y agoWhile this generally works as a way of filtering that one company if needed, it doesn't protect against spam when if they have their mailing lists stolen (or selling them is BAU), and many spammers know about this and will send to the base address instead. Unless you automatically file anything without +something as junk, of course.
- hammyhavoc 3y agoI apply labels and `skip inbox` via Gmail filters automatically. It's probably the one redeeming quality of Gmail at this point and is what keeps me using it so that email can be processed prior to it sending a push notification to my devices. With that said, it's a niche use anyway, stick to the catch-all on your own domain whenever possible, and for anything else, it's a fringe case anyway.
- JohnFen 3y agoThat would require you to get an account on the big name mail providers, though.
- scrollaway 3y agoI don't believe you. I'm sure a couple of examples of this exist, but they're the exception, and certainly not a case of "more and more".
- whitemary 3y agoI use Fastmail's masked emails all the time and nobody minds at all. I just used another one at H&M yesterday, which I do every single time because you get 15% for creating a new account with them. I don't even read it out to them. I just hold up my phone and show it to them, which they appreciate.
- londons_explore 3y agoJust remember that misrepresenting your identity as a way to get a benefit (like a discount) is technically wire fraud. You're unlikely to get prosecuted till the day you do it to the wrong company...
- ipaddr 3y agoNo it's wire fraud. I invite you to back that somehow. Using different emails or addresses or different cards is not illegal
- whitemary 3y agoLmao having multiple email addresses or H&M accounts is definitely not "wire fraud."
- carlosjobim 3y agoJust remember what? Unless he claims to be somebody else he is hardly committing any fraud. If they don't remember him or if their system doesn't remember him - isn't that their own problem? But the steps people take to get a discount... He could probably just straihgt ask for a discount and get it anyway without making a new registration.
- IG_Semmelweiss 3y agoANyone minding will not tell you they actually mind.... Case in point. ChatGPT will not accept any masked email from fastmail. I tried multiple traditional domains. No luck. The error was something to the effect "try later, too much traffic" something or other. (Hiding behind public perception, slick). This went on for days. One day, after the 20th try...on the next second, I finally relented and used my google workplace email... (which ironically enough is not very liked , particularly by banks, since its not a traditional dot com domain). That worked immediately.
- Semaphor 3y ago> Yeah but you look really weird trying to give this email in person or over the phone. Less often than you’d think. Though I had one legal department write me, and a confused music label owner with a by-mail order process ;)
- dspillett 3y ago> Yeah but you look really weird trying to give this email in person or over the phone. I really don't care about that. If anyone questions it I'm honest: “it lets me filter messages into folders/tags so I can prioritise easily, and it lets me easily block your company if it sends too much or sell my details on”. I once had someone (an in-physical-store “signup and we'll send you some vouchers” deal) refuse to accept such an address to which my response was “Fair enough, but if you won't take that I'm not signing up, you aren't getting other contact details out of me”. Other than that one example I've had no trouble in this regard, the only other significant reactions I've had being something along the lines of “I might have to start doing that”. Never let commercial interests embarrass or guilt you into behaving in their favour! I used a sub-domain for the catch all which has one or twice over the years caused an issue due to bad validation, not liking the extra “.” unless it is near the end like in .co.uk, at which point I step away because a company that can't deal with a perfectly valid email address domain part probably can't store anything securely! > Most stuff that comes from email leaks gets caught but the spam filter already. It isn't just leaks, it is when the company itself sends too much or gives your details to its parent/child/partner companies (most likely there was a non-optional, or at least default-on, checkbox that give them permission to do this). That sort of thing is less likely to be caught by general spam filters, though admittedly the volume or that is likely rather lower so the irritation likewise.
- Vvector 3y agoThat works 99% of the time. But that one unscrupulous company sells your email to their "partners" and now you have to block dozens of domains.
- genewitch 3y agoyes, this is the reason to use email on your own domain, it doesn't matter if a company sells the email address, you just spambox all the email to that address after cancelling or whatever. everyone is hip to the dot separation and + of google et al. it does nothing. good luck getting me to look at genewitch@mydomain emails, since i have used that exactly zero times.
- JohnFen 3y ago> Yeah but you look really weird trying to give this email in person or over the phone. That's not a problem. I look weird anyway.
- dspillett 3y ago> STORENAME@mycustomdomain.com I regretted using the main domain for that, as some junk mailers either cotton on to there being a catchall or just chance that many domains have many users with common names, so sometimes I would get several messages for andrew@domain.tld, brian@domain.tld, carl@domain.tld, etc. These days I use STORENAME@sub.domain.tld which seems to attract a lot less junk, practically none, by the above manner. The catchall on the main domain was replaced by large forwarding list of the addresses I'd got legitimate emails from, with anything else now bouncing as usual. > Retailers that don't honor the unsubscribe button It also protects against when retailers are hacked and their mailing list taken, or them selling it on either as BAU or during the fire sale as they go out of business.
- Semaphor 3y ago> I would get several messages for andrew@domain.tld, brian@domain.tld, carl@domain.tld, etc. I read about that sometimes (or well, rather the less specific one where you’d get generally random spam to your domain), and in over 7 years of doing website@exmaple.org I never had this happen. I wonder what the difference between people like me, and people like you is?
- digging 3y agoI have this setup as well for the past 4 years and I always worry about the GP's problem popping up, but it hasn't yet. I am also very curious.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- AshamedCaptain 3y ago"You never had this happen?" I have had a catch all email for over 3 decades and spammers practically try everything under the sun for the local part of the email address. It's like the usernames you see in the "random background ssh noise" of the internet. On more recent decades I have seen bots even split by separator, e.g. if prefix.suffix@example.com is published online, they will try prefix@example.com and suffix@example.com.
- bombcar 3y agoSamsung is onto this - you can't signup with an email that has the word Samsung in it. So slamsung@ it is.
- lagniappe 3y agoCheck out Privacy.com, they let you make virtual cards that you can limit or cancel whenever if things get fishy. I had to use this recently with a merchant who, after being unable to sell from their e-store on weekends left me wondering if I was going to be charged for this unprocessed order or not. The person I spoke to at the business had a 'gotcha' flair to their response about this, so I just cancelled the number before the conversation was over.
- posix86 3y agoPro tip: You can add a `+anything` to your gmail address, and it will still be sent to you (so e.g. `foo.bar+wsj@gmail.com`, when your email address is `foo.bar@gmail.com`). Most websites don't know this and treat it as a different email address, too, if you ever need to sign up twice.
- OJFord 3y agoYou can also use `.`s arbitrarily, so your 'foo.bar@gmail.com` is 'really' (you might say) `foobar@gmail.com` but also equivalently `f.o.o.b.a.r@gmail.com` and whatever else.
- D-Coder 3y agoGMail may understand this (it is a standard, I believe) but many sites reject a "+" in an email address. My ISP is panix.com, which allows me an unlimited number of addresses like "STORENAME@myemail.users.panix.com". This is almost always accepted by websites, works just like the "+" version, and only once has anyone ever been surprised by it. ("Is this a joke???" "No, etc.") Disclaimer: Just a happy customer.
- ru552 3y agoMany institutions allow you to issue yourself a digital card via your online banking/mobile app. You can turn it off whenever you want. I have digital cards for all my subscriptions in the event I have the problem you had. The digital cards all tie back to your physical one, but it allows you to give a different card number to the vendor that is not your actual plastic card number.
- OJFord 3y agoYou can also just cancel a direct debit, and ignore them when they ask you to please setup a new payment method.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoIt's alarming how many people just in general don't have a clue where their money is going.