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by fpgaminer 3923 days ago
Speaking of spam, the wedding industry is the worst offender I've ever seen; worse than porn websites. I've had my email address web spider-able for many years, but never seen as much spam as I have while planning a wedding. These venues and vendors take your information and sell it 2 seconds later to anyone and everyone. One venue, for example, I emailed to set up a visit and meeting. This wasn't some web form, it was me emailing them directly. Suddenly I'm subscribed to their newsletter. That was quite novel; they now rot in my spam folder.

Beyond that, after all this contact with venues, vendors, and bridal shows I'm now being bombarded with email spam, text spam, and worst of all phone calls from scam artists. The last one in particular is disturbing and makes it clear that these wedding related companies are selling information like there's no tomorrow. Disgusting.
4 comments
silencio 3923 days ago
I used a spam-only email and a google voice number to sign up for all my wedding planning-related needs. It would be unbearable otherwise. It's been two years and I still get spam _every day_ despite unsubscribing (and when available, reporting them as unsolicited). Sadly I wish I could do the same for facebook - I still get wedding planning and egg donation ads.

I think a close second place goes to real estate agents. I'll inquire about something once and I end up with newsletters about seminars and houses I don't care for.

Now that I think about it, I'm not sure I've gotten any spam from porn websites I've signed up for, at least...

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Bill_Dimm 3923 days ago
In a similar vein, but with physical mail, I made a donation to the local PBS TV station years ago during one of their fundraisers. They sent me a postcard with my name misspelled in a way I had never seen before. I then received solicitation mails from several other charities with the same misspelling. Nothing says "thank you for your donation" like being sold out for a few extra dollars. I never donated to them again.
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shostack 3923 days ago
Did you happen to create an account at TheKnot.com? We used dedicated email addresses for our wedding because I anticipated this, along with a "+theknot" modifier on the address, and holy crap did that inbox blow up with everyone they sold it to.
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dkersten 3923 days ago
Sounds like a good candidate for foo+wedding@gmail type addresses so you know exactly who did what and then not do business there...

Or at least, use a mailinator address.

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