If you receive emails from a reputable business and want the emails to stop then usually the easy answer is just to click the unsubscribe button.
The problem is where you are dealing with emails from companies that you don’t know whether they are reputable or not and of course the vast majority of spam messages are from the disreputable sources.
For these, it’s usually a bad idea to click on the unsubscribe link – assuming there is one of course.
Why is that?
- By clicking, you are confirming that the email address is Live and hence it may be added to spam lists that sell at a higher price than spam lists of untested email address. These lists are sold to other scammers and spammers.
- Your click demonstrates an interest in the subject of the email. A sender that is not reputable will then double down and send you many more similar emails.
- The sender can glean quite a lot of information from your click, about your browser and operating system, IP address etc. and that can be used to target scams and attacks against you.
- The link you click may well be to a site that tries to download malware onto your device.
Think twice before clicking on an unsubscribe link.
If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.