Stupid Marketer Watch: I’m Getting This Why?

I hate it when companies try and bullsh!t me. Rite Aid recently sent an e-mail pitching Medicare Part D supplemental drug coverage into an account I set up in my son’s name on Yahoo.

Never mind that I’m not yet 65. It’s how Rite Aid got the address and why it claimed I received the e-mail that makes the nationwide drug chain the newest inductee into the Magilla Stupid Marketer Hall of Fame.

When I set up the Yahoo e-mail account—which must be at least two years ago now, though I am not sure—I opted it into a bunch of e-mail-address acquisition efforts to see what would happen spam-wise and how difficult it would be to clean up the mess. Not surprisingly, the address got a lot of e-mail. Surprisingly, however, it wasn’t difficult to clean up at all.

But the address still gets the occasional message from well-known brands even though it has never been involved in a commercial transaction. Translation: some firm posing as a reputable data source is selling a file with extremely stale names on it.

As a result, the file most certainly contains spam traps, or abandoned addresses inbox providers monitor to see who is mailing to old, dirty files. And anyone who sends to it runs a high risk of getting their mail blocked.

But here’s the best part. In the footer of Rite Aid’s message, it said: “You are receiving this e-mail because you are a Rite Aid pharmacy customer.”

Coincidentally, I am sometimes a Rite Aid pharmacy customer, but so is a large portion of the population. And I’ve never given the firm my e-mail address. If I wanted to communicate with Rite Aid by e-mail, I wouldn’t supply it with a junk address I set up in my son’s name specifically to get slaughtered with commercial mail.

So I certainly did not receive that message because I am a Rite Aid customer. I received the e-mail because Rite Aid bought a garbage list, the same list, by the way, that has been sold to Kmart, Columbia House DVD, Smithsonian Magazine, and Circuit City, among others.

Each of the firms who bought this list has been sold a bill of goods by someone. But now Rite Aid has taken it a step further and is trying to sell its spam recipients a load of nonsense by claiming the message was a result of them being Rite Aid customers. Either that, or it’s just Rite Aid’s standard footer and someone wasn’t paying attention.

Either way, a bunch of people most likely have probably hit the “report spam” button on Rite Aid by now, and the pharmacy should start having e-mail delivery troubles if it hasn’t already.

My guess is new Medicare Part D business isn’t exactly flying through Rite Aid’s door as a result of this campaign, either.