Contacting uncontactable email support

[InnSuu]

A friend, using her Mac email, signed up to the iclarified newsletter. She no longer wants to receive it. Unfortunately she cannot remember her user name - this is required to change / unsubscribe. But despite many attempts to contact iclarified support via the contact form and a found support email address, there has been no response whatsoever. I have also tried using a throwaway email, nothing. This has been going on for months. I contacted namecheap, the registrar, who said they had no obligation to help as they are not hosting the servers. I cannot find who hosts them for certain.

What else can she / we do to quit the persistent newsletter, now labelled SPAM and going straight to junk.

I am already in the 'just ignore it' mode, but I am not content with this powerless feeling and hopeless position.

I would hope that, if not legally but on decent guideline terms, iclarified are bound to be contactable and will respect an unsubscribe - but it appears they are neither.

 

[laptech]

Most countries have a Data Information commission (or words to that effect) that are able to deal with rogue websites. You will usually find that a condition of websites being allowed to be used in a country they have to abide by certain operational rules which can be how website cookies are dealt with and being able to unsubscribe from a website (canceling an account/removal of email address).

If iclarified is not unsubscribing people from their website/newsletter then they are probably breaking the countries Data information laws (if the country has them). See if your country has a Data Information commission and contact them.

 

[InnSuu]

...See if your country has a Data Information commission and contact them...

Good shout. This is happening in the UK. So it's been reported, now, to the ICO/Nuisance calls and messages, but nothing back. I expect that'll and this'll be a long drawn out process - pity.

 

[laptech]

Good shout. This is happening in the UK. So it's been reported, now, to the ICO/Nuisance calls and messages, but nothing back. I expect that'll and this'll be a long drawn out process - pity.

nothing moves fast in the business world unless money is involved. Therefore as no money is involved expect it to be a long drawn out process.

 

[InnSuu]

nothing moves fast in the business world unless money is involved. Therefore as no money is involved expect it to be a long drawn out process.

True, sadly. Money and/or 'guidelines'... and/or even law, especially when it comes to software and their companies and the prime art obfuscation.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Most websites with logins have a link for "forgot username"…where you input the email address that receives the emails. It's unfortunate that a site dealing with technology doesn't.

Try contacting them through a public forum such as Twitter.

 

[orionquest]

People actually sign up for newletters???

Might be best to setup a email rule to delete any emails from this website as you might not have any luck the other way.

 

[Fishrrman]

Your friend should set up a "rule" in Mail.app that will automatically DELETE all emails coming from that address.

No, this doesn't remove her from the email list.
But without knowing her own username, she probably cannot succeed in doing that.

Just delete the emails as they come in, and get on with life.

 

[InnSuu]

People actually sign up for newletters???

Why the triple ??? re newsletters? Are they bad?! If yes, why so? Thank you.

 

[InnSuu]

No, this doesn't remove her from the email list.
But with knowing her own username, she probably cannot succeed in doing that.

Do you mean "without" knowing?

I do not know of any other website that refuses to acknowledge this possibility. But the fact that it does respond to support is telling.

 

[InnSuu]

How would one go about discovering who hosts iclarified, or any website for that matter?

 

[BrianBaughn]

Did you try sending them a note on Twitter?

 

[InnSuu]

Most websites with logins have a link for "forgot username"…where you input the email address that receives the emails. It's unfortunate that a site dealing with technology doesn't.

Try contacting them through a public forum such as Twitter.

I don't have an account, neither does she. Other than unavoidable embeds I see, I've never been to the twitter site. I would consider making a twitter account a step too far in resolving this. But, genuinely, thank you for the suggestion.

I would like to find out the site hosts, and report them there.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I find when I turn the project over to someone else it often doesn't get finished the way I wanted.

Mac Mail, since Catalina, has an "unsubscribe" button (iOS, also since some point). Has anyone ever had success using that?

You do realize you don't have to use your real email address to create a Twitter account. I have a crap Yahoo email account that I use when I don't want to give my real one.

 

[InnSuu]

I find when I turn the project over to someone else it often doesn't get finished the way I wanted.

Mac Mail, since Catalina, has an "unsubscribe" button (iOS, also since some point). Has anyone ever had success using that?

You do realize you don't have to use your real email address to create a Twitter account. I have a crap Yahoo email account that I use when I don't want to give my real one.

Cheers.

The unsubscribe in Mac Mail merely looks for the link in the email that says unsubscribe. It's nothing more.

Fair point on the twitter. That said, is this a good route? Do companies notices tweets from new accounts complaining about their service? My insignificance to them is clear, and joining twitter to become a pygmy throwing a cocktail stick at a faceless tech website seems somehow demeaning. I believe if the hosts are contacted they will have more of a duty to respond - and that said... I will consider the twitter option.

well, we know, I'm a little effed here. I can't give her a solid solution, and the responses here all echo that this is something she will have to put up with. I find it unacceptable. I have to assume that everyone here reading this have some kind of unstoppable junk and spam coming in. I only get one or two a month.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Fair point on the twitter. That said, is this a good route? Do companies notices tweets from new accounts complaining about their service? My insignificance to them is clear, and joining twitter to become a pygmy throwing a cocktail stick at a faceless tech website seems somehow demeaning.

If you mean new "Twitter" accounts I doubt they'd even check the age of the account.

In the case of iClarified it wouldn't shock me if the Twitter or any other social media route got you nowhere. iClarified is a horrible website that just regurgitates news articles.

I'd be surprised if there's more than one person running iClarified. It all looks automated to me.

If by "her Mac email" you mean an iCloud account, the easiest thing to do would be to login to the iCloud account in Safari, go to the preferences in Mail and make a rule for emails from the sender's domain to "Move to Trash and Mark as Read". The rule, being set at the server, will be applied before the email hits any of her devices.

If her account is with a different email host than iCloud there might be even better options such as bouncing the email and never letting it into her stuff.

 

[InnSuu]

...

If by "her Mac email" you mean an iCloud account, the easiest thing to do would be to login to the iCloud account in Safari, go to the preferences in Mail and make a rule for emails from the sender's domain to "Move to Trash and Mark as Read". The rule, being set at the server, will be applied before the email hits any of her devices....

Thank you. I will get to try the icloud / safari setting over the weekend. And really appreciate the input, Brian. Best.

 

[KaliYoni]

I cannot find who hosts them for certain.

If you know how to display the headers of emails, you can use SpamCop to do some backtracing of an email's path to the recipient:
spamcop.net

But, unfortunately, I agree with what others have said. There really isn't much you can do other than setting rules to block or trash the emails, especially because the source sounds like a single person content farm. Plus hosts and domain registrars usually don't care or, worse, specialize in spam and scams.

 

[InnSuu]

If you know how to display the headers of emails, you can use SpamCop to do some backtracing of an email's path to the recipient:
spamcop.net

...

Thank you. I'll take a look at that. Cheers.

 

[InnSuu]

Dear MacRumor experts, My friend has had no joy ridding herself of the evil and autobot iClarified. Simply comes in and goes to junk in macmail, and autodeleted. Tried spambot too - no change. I want them stopped. Anyone?