Today, I received a commercial email message from Sears Home Services, a.k.a., Sears Holdings Corporation. They got my email address when I made a service appointment through their Web site, which I subsequently canceled when it became clear that they were going to charge me more than a local repair man.
The email message contained no instructions for opting out of future commercial email messages. This is a clear and direct violation of the Federal CAN-SPAM act (see requirement 5 in The FTC’s CAN-SPAM Act Compliance Guide for Business).
Here’s what the privacy policy on their Web site says:
Can I “Opt-Out” of Receiving Promotional E-mails?
From time to time, we may send you e-mails with promotional offers if you opt-in to receiving such emails. If you would no longer like to receive e-mailed special event information, sales notifications or other promotional messages from this web site, you can unsubscribe from this site’s e-mail marketing list by following the unsubscribe link located at the bottom of each promotional e-mail. Your e-mail address will be removed from this site’s email marketing list within 10 days.
Therefore, in addition to violating the CAN-SPAM Act, they also violated their own published privacy policy.
Their Web site claims that registered users can edit settings on the site to tell Sears “whether you wish to receive e-mail about special sales, promotions and other events.” So I registered on the site, using the same email address they spammed me on. When I looked at my profile after registering, it said that I’m not subscribed to receive any email from them. Nice!
There are no instructions in their privacy policy for how to notify them about violations.
I’ve submitted a complaint to the FTC as well as submitted a complaint to Sears through their Web site. We’ll see what comes of it.
This is one of several reasons why I won’t be letting anyone from Sears into my house to repair my appliances.
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Tags: Sears
Thanks for your posting.
Sears won’t “unsubscribe” me either. I have clicked on their “unsubscribe button” numerous times and on numerous days for over three weeks. NOTHING happens. They continue to send me daily e-mail ads.
Any suggestions?
Seems like sears email spam is widespread. I am having the same issue. I’ve unsubscribed three times and I am still receiving emails from sears almost daily. Here is the FTC URL to file complaint.
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en