I was excited back in June 2007 when I learned that a new Performance Bike store would be opening practically right next door to me. The other Performance Bike store here in Austin at the time was 5 miles north of me, but I would be able to walk to this one in about 5 minutes and, if my bike were ever unrideable, I liked the thought of being able to walk to the bike shop rather than drive. I was very excited in a very nerdy sort of way and I immediately posted an announcement on a local cycling E-mail list. I included a link to a Google map of the planned location and a link to the store's web page on the Performance Bike website. About six weeks later, I posted another announcement when the store opened for business.
I probably learned about the new store from the Performance Bike E-mail list. They'd send special announcements about sales and new stores. I don't remember how often I'd get the messages, but I don't remember it being a problem. I had bought from their online store before and, despite stuff arriving broken in the mail or not showing up at all sometimes, they always refunded me, at least once simply on my word that I hadn't received anything. The entire operation seemed pretty well managed.
So when I signed up for the special "Team Performance" discount card I didn't mind getting a little extra E-mail every so often about in-store specials for "Team Performance" members, even if they did charge $25 for the privilege. I used the card regularly and I shopped there regularly. It seemed like a reasonable trade off.
Until earlier this summer.
Then the E-mail started arriving more frequently, about every other day. I don't like distracting E-mail and this was becoming distracting and no longer worth the trade-off. So I selected the "
To unsubscribe, click here," link.
That was over a month ago, but the E-mail, now more accurately called "spam," kept on coming. Several times I selected the unsubscribe link in the spam, but the spam still kept coming. I started filing formal complaints about the spam with their Internet service provider, but the spam kept coming. I phoned their Internet service provider and was assured that they'd look into it, but the spam kept coming. I sent E-mail to various addresses listed on the Performance Bike website, and I received some auto-replies, plus this this brief exchange with a person (who seemed to have only a limited command of the English language):
From: Performance Product Support
Date: Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 9:49 AM
Subject: RE: Re: URGENT: Persistent Spam from Your Network (2008-08-10) (#8201-108635387-5866)
We find is quite humorous that use spam to apparently complain about spam.
Performance Product Support
800-553-8324
WWW.PERFORMANCEBIKE.COM
Date: Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 11:09 AM
Subject: Re: Re: URGENT: Persistent Spam from Your Network (2008-08-10) (#8201-108635387-5866)
To: Performance Product Support
This is a person-to-person communication, hardly falling under any reasonable meaning of spam.
Is there anyone there that can help?
Date: Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 11:23 AM
Subject: Re: Re: URGENT: Persistent Spam from Your Network (2008-08-10) (#8201-108635387-5866)
To: Performance Product Support
Incidentally, all you need to do is ask me to stop sending these and I'll stop sending them.
It's not my aim to bother or annoy anyone, but simply to stop the spam. So far, I haven't received a reply from anyone.
I respect others' requests for me to stop sending them email. Do you?
From: Performance Product Support
Date: Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 1:54 PM
Subject: RE: Re: Re: URGENT: Persistent Spam from Your Network (2008-08-10) (#8201-108635387-5866)
As your e-mail does not appear to have anything to do with the products we sell, no one here in Product Support can help you. You should direct your questions to our Customer Service Department at 800-727-2433 or customerservice@performanceinc.com
Performance Product Support
800-553-8324
WWW.PERFORMANCEBIKE.COM
A lot of good that did. Of course, the spam kept coming. I had a look at the Federal "CAN-SPAM" act, and on the FTC website I found
a summary of what the law requires of commercial emailers. Here's an excerpt:
It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests. You may create a "menu" of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial messages from the sender.
Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your commercial email. When you receive an opt-out request, the law gives you 10 business days to stop sending email to the requestor's email address.
...
Each violation of the above provisions is subject to fines of up to $11,000.
Trust me, I'm not so naive as to believe that the law would actually be enforced in this case, but yesterday I took a little bit of satisfaction out of filing a formal complaint on the FTC website. Today, I stopped by the local store, handed them a sheet of paper with my E-mail address on it and asked them to "stop spamming me. Just stop it." I then drove to
Bicycle Sport Shop and bought a couple of tubes. I don't care for the margins they add, but they're honest about it and, what's more,
they respect me.
I'll post here if anything changes, but if you don't see anything new here, it's because the Performance Bike spam keeps on coming.
