I’ve heard stories about how clicking on unsubscribe links can actually lead to more spam email. And I know about spoofing and fake URLs. But I thought my spam filter was doing pretty well at keeping the flood of “illegitimate” spam (or would that be “legitimate” spam because it actually IS spam?) away from my In Box, so I have been madly clicking on “unsub” links and trying to get off most of the commercially oriented lists that I have over the years accumulated. These are companies that I have bought something from one time, or asked a question, or something and ended up on their mailing lists, but am now simply trying to see if I can cut back a bit.

So far, with pretty good success. But today, I got an email from a company selling (ironically) mailing lists and saw an unsubscribe link at the bottom. So in a moment of abandon I clicked on the link – and it unsubscribed me from Groupon. Quite a suprise to end up there and I wondered if it this was a mistake or intentional on the part of the person selling the mailing lists.

There was a contact phone number and a live person answered – and when I asked if his name was “Paul” (the person who purportedly sent the email), he said yes. I then informed him of the “problem” with his link. He told me that he would take care of it. I hope he does.

The link to Groupon automatically unsubscribed me. And although the webpage did offer an option to resubscribe, that link didn’t work, so I had to call Groupon to get back subscribed.

I’ve learned this lesson before, but so much time has passed without problems and I just got lazy. So, in the future, I will make sure that the Unsubscribe link is going to a place I recognize as “legitimate.”