View Full Version : Bluehost SPAMMING ME
In the last few weeks I've gotten no less then 10 emails from Bluehost about a domain I own that is about to expire asking me to transfer it to Bluehost.com as the registrar.
THERE ARE NO UNSUBSCRIBE INSTRUCTIONS in this message at all.
Why is Bluehost spamming me over and over and over and over again?
Between this and the random downtimes, I'm not all that thrilled with my recent move to Bluehost.
jmalchow
04-23-2006, 01:32 PM
Better safe than sorry... you'd prefer those spam messages if you ever forget to renew your domain and a bot snaps it up at the stroke of midnight when it expires. And there is a bot out on almost every word and combination of words in the English language!
-joe
whiteknite
04-23-2006, 02:41 PM
when my website, www.happydancingeyes.com was about to expire, I was EXTREMELY grateful that I got e-mails from bluehost reminding me about it. I decided to set up an automatic renewal so my site would not be taken off line.
I forget how to do that; but if you call bluehost and ask them I am sure they will be more than happy to help you with it.
You can always delete the e-mails anytime you want. That is what I do after I don't need them anymore.
Terry
One message would be fine ... but 10 messages?
There's a big difference between Bluehost looking out for their customers with a kind reminder of a domain expiring and Bluehost spamming their customers WITH NO WAY TO UNSUBSCRIBE for their domain transfer service.
I'm glad you guys like this type of spam, good for you but I do not and the fact that there is no obvious way to get off Bluehost's spam list (besides no longer being one of their customers) is very annoying.
Basil
04-23-2006, 08:20 PM
Block the address if getting more than one email from somewhere reminding you of something makes you so very angry. I'm sure it was far more difficult to delete the messages than it was to post here complaining about it.
vegasgwm
04-24-2006, 06:58 AM
wes should probably look up the meaning of spamming.
Block the address if getting more than one email from somewhere reminding you of something makes you so very angry.
The spam is coming from "support@bluehost.com" which I'm pretty sure would be a bad idea to block, but thanks for playing.
wes should probably look up the meaning of spamming.
How is an email asking me to transfer my soon to expire domain to a new registrar not spam? I get this same sort of spam from other spammers that simply scrape the info from the whois system.
Oh and I just got 2 more copies of this reminder message, now bringing the total to 12.
Definition of "Spam": Delicious meat in a can.
. .
The spam total is now up to 14.
Anyone from Bluehost (I know you guys read these forums) care to comment on why I would be receiving 14 emails about transferring one of my expiring domains if your intention is not to spam customers?
Can you forward that to me I want to see the verbage. Sent the latest one as an attachment to edenite1 at yahoo.com (replace the at with @)
I'll do ya one better, I'll just post it here. I've removed my personal identifying info.
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 23:55:14 -0600 (MDT) [04/25/2006 10:55:14 PM PDT]
From: "BlueHost.Com" <support@bluehost.com>
To: *******@*******.***
Subject: ********.*** Expiring
This is a courtesy note to inform you that the domain registration for ******.*** will expire in 2 DAYS. It is YOUR responsibility to keep your domain in good standing. If you would like us to renew it for you, then you will first need to transfer the Registrar to us for free.
https://www.bluehost.com/dm/transfer?domain=*******.***
If it gets too near the expiration, the Losing Registrar has the right to DENY the transfer from happening and we will be unable to renew the domain for you.
If you decide NOT to transfer the Registrar to us, please renew ******.*** with your Current Registrar and you will not receive this warning anymore.
Thank you,
Bluehost Support
http://www.BlueHost.Com
email: support@bluehost.com
Toll-Free: (888) 401-HOST
I'm getting two of these a day right now ... both with the same exact content.
Yup, I got 1 of these when one of mine was going to expire. Your complaint is valid.
According to the Bluehost TOS Agreement:
__________________________________________________ ____________
Spamming
Spamming, whether or not it overloads the Services or disrupts service to Bluehost.com's Subscribers, is prohibited. The term "spamming" includes, but is not limited to, the sending of unsolicited bulk and/or commercial message over the Internet or maintaining an open SMTP policy. Bluehost.com reserves the right to determine, in its sole and absolute discretion, whether e-mail recipients were from an opt-in email list.
__________________________________________________ ____________
In my opinion, you should cancel your account with them and ask for a prorated refund on these grounds.
Except for 1 thing... Unless they determine that your email address is in an opt-in email list. Which it is, since you accepted the TOS agreement when you signed up.
Good luck with that!
Dave
. .
solarnexus
04-26-2006, 03:49 PM
yeah, its a bit iritating but tbh I get about 400 spams a day so... its barely anything.
though I think there should be an option to stop getting more messages. I've wanted a domain to expire for about 8months now and its getting annoying having these messages turn up all the time (luckily its going to expire on in a few days)
impactnoise
04-26-2006, 04:59 PM
It does seem kind of odd that you are getting so many reminders. Just for comparison and such, I received one reminder 40 days in advance of expiration and then another 29 days in advance. I renewed my domain about 20 days prior to expiration with no other reminders inbetween. Maybe I would have received and excess of reminders as I got closer to the expiration date, I don't know... (edit: oops, I didn't see that you solarnexus also had the same barrage of reminders /edit)
I don't know if you tried this but it seems that the best course of action would have been (or would be) to call support and see if they could do something about it. I had to make a lot of calls to support in the past few months and they were always very helpful and willing to bounce to someone "higher up" if they could not help me.
impactnoise
04-26-2006, 05:37 PM
I just noticed that in the Domain Manager you can alter your mailing preferences within the Profile section.
From time to time, BlueHost will send you mail informing you of new additions to our products or services. These mails may be turned on or off at your convenience.
Regardless of this setting, you may still receive important emails regarding your account.
Current Setting: You will receive all non-essential emails and bluehost announcements.
Click here to turn non-essential emails off
Of course I somewhat doubt that they consider domain expiration reminders to be "non-essential email" so this is probably no help.
Except for 1 thing... Unless they determine that your email address is in an opt-in email list. Which it is, since you accepted the TOS agreement when you signed up.
Please explain how I opted in to Bluehost's spam-me-about-domain-transfers-every-day list by accepting the bluehost TOS? You seem to like quoting the TOS but failed to quote the part about Bluehost having the right to spam me.
What you quoted has nothing to do with me opting in, instead it said that Bluehost would be the final say on if mail sent or received is spam based on their assessment of whether the recipient opted in. I'm sure this is to determine if Bluehost customers are sending spam or not.
areidmtm
04-27-2006, 09:01 AM
Now I’d like to assume that you have contacted BlueHost thorough email or called them to fix the issue (I don’t recall you mentioning if you have). If you haven’t, the more productive thing to do would be to contact them to resolve the issue. Rather then complaining about it here and not getting the problem fixed. Although, we all like to read about what other users are experiencing.
I’m curious to their response.
I was making light of the subject but obviously these emails are automatically generated and no human at bluehost knows anything about them being sent to you. But impactnoise has the answer for you. Checking those settings and/or calling them is sound advice.
nick106b
04-27-2006, 09:20 AM
I agree with Basil... Just block the incoming mail adderess. If it goes into your junk box it gets deleted automaticly after a few days anyway. Nick.
:rolleyes:
areidmtm
04-27-2006, 09:25 AM
For me, I like to receive notices from bluehost helping me to improve my site with upgrades or reminding me that my domains are going to expire. Although, I do agree with Wes that 14+ emails a day gets really annoying. I don't think that you should have to deal with that or resort to blocking bluehost emails to fix it. I think customer service should fix the problem and not send you anymore emails if you don't want them.
walker
04-27-2006, 09:33 AM
For me, I like to receive notices from bluehost helping me to improve my site with upgrades or reminding me that my domains are going to expire. Although, I do agree with Wes that 14+ emails a day gets really annoying. I don't think that you should have to deal with that or resort to blocking bluehost emails to fix it. I think customer service should fix the problem and not send you anymore emails if you don't want them.
I would agree with that point of view if the domains were actually registered with Bluehost but, as I understand it, they're registered with a different registrar, so it's none of Bluehost's ruddy business.
areidmtm
04-27-2006, 09:35 AM
I would agree with that point of view if the domains were actually registered with Bluehost but, as I understand it, they're registered with a different registrar, so it's none of Bluehost's ruddy business.
I see your point. My domains are registerd with Godaddy. Godaddy reminds me that my domains are going to expire. I don't need bluehost AND godaddy reminding me. If I had domains with bluehost, then that would be fine
I would agree with that point of view if the domains were actually registered with Bluehost but, as I understand it, they're registered with a different registrar, so it's none of Bluehost's ruddy business.
This is exactly the reason I feel these emails are spam (they are soliciting new business) rather than just sending reminders to their customers that they "care" about.
Add this to the fact that I've gotten 14 such solicitations so far for a single domain. Even the most aggressive viagra spammers don't hit the same target so hard in such a short time.
I was making light of the subject but obviously these emails are automatically generated and no human at bluehost knows anything about them being sent to you. But impactnoise has the answer for you. Checking those settings and/or calling them is sound advice.
Some human at Bluehost wrote and/or installed the app that's sending these messages and it's obviously Bluehost's policy to spam their customers with these reminders as indicated by others in this thread who have received them.
Regardles of whether it's auto generated spam or the CEO himself is spamming me from his Outlook client ... it's still spam in my opinion.
And you've yet to explain how I've opted in to these messages by agreeing to Bluehost's TOS. Were you just making this up in your blind defense of Bluehost or what?
And I post to these forums to interact with Bluehost support who post here frequently. It's much easier to post here and get community feedback/support along with Bluehost support rather than calling or emailing support. Even the CEO has responded to one of my threads in the past. This is the reason Bluehost setup these forums (for support). Sure I could call or email but why is posting my issue here any less valid?
We're 3 pages into this thread and still no response from Bluehost.
Unfortunately the support forums are not monitored by Bluehost Support. they only come here in their off hours. That's so the community may offer support to each other freeing up the support technicians to handle tickets and phone calls.
Look here and you will see that all of the forum leaders are off line during regular hours. (http://www.bluehostforum.com/showgroups.php)
Now, I realize this is a problem for you. You want to call it spam and perhaps it is. And evidentally you are a little annoyed by it since you used that big red angry face to head your original post.
But friend, you signed up with Bluehost so they can send you emails about things if they want to. But I've read here that you can control some of the emails they send you by adjusting the settings in your domain manager. You can block the domain from being sent to you. You could call them and ask them to look into it for you while you wait on the phone. Or you can just delete them when they arrive.
But after 3 pages, and all these responses to your problem, you just want Bluehost support to explain to you in this forum why they think they have the right to send you spam? They may respond to you later in the evening. But I doubt it.
I feel your pain, but spam happens. But I'm really sorry to hear it's happening to you more than most. I hope you have a better day.
Dave
Unfortunately the support forums are not monitored by Bluehost Support. they only come here in their off hours.
I believe you left out the world "officially" from "the support forums are not monitored by Bluehost Support". A number of Bluehost staff members up to and including the CEO monitor these forums and often post comments in response to customer problems or complaints. I find it interesting that in this case they've been completely silent even though they claim to be customer oriented. Whether a company disregards a customer complaint just because it did not come through an official channel is often a sign of their true commitment to customer satisfaction.
Maybe they have all been too busy over the last four days, who knows.
But friend, you signed up with Bluehost so they can send you emails about things if they want to.
Again I ask you to point out where in the Bluehost TOS it says that Bluehost can spam my inbox for their services? It would seem to me considering their strong stance against spam that this would not be the case at all.
You continue to claim otherwise yet fail to provide any proof. If it's your feeling that Bluehost can spam its customers, that's fine but don't continue to try and act like it's part of some sort of agreement or contract Bluehost customers sign or agree to when they sign up.
But I've read here that you can control some of the emails they send you by adjusting the settings in your domain manager.
I've now done that, thanks. But are you saying that 14 identical messages for the same exact add-on service is how their system is supposed to work? How about why don't they clearly put the information regarding the opt-out procedure in the email? It would seem to me that at least one if not more of the following is happening:
1) Their mailing system is screwed up and I was only supposed to get a single reminder
2) The person who wrote the template email innocently forgot to include information as to why the customer was receiving the email and instructions to turn it off
3) The decision was made to send out multiple reminders on purpose to generate more domain transfers (this is a spam technique)
4) The decision was made to purposely obfuscate the opt-out procedure by not including any mention of how to opt-out in the email itself (this is a spam technique)
In my opinion at least 2 of the above are true, I'm just trying to find out which two it is. Only Bluehost can clear that up for us.
You can block the domain from being sent to you.
Yeah that makes sense, block any mail coming from Bluehost.com meaning any support tickets I file never get answered via email. Blocking bluehost.com isn't even an option and you know it (and may not even work if they are on the auto white list server side).
You could call them and ask them to look into it for you while you wait on the phone.
Yep, that's an option that is just as valid as posting my issue here or submitting a help ticket in my opinion.
Or you can just delete them when they arrive.
I don't subscribe to the ignore spam and it'll go away method of thinking, sorry. I could have simply forwarded the messages along to a spam monitoring service to deal with but instead I thought I'd give Bluehost a chance to explain why I'm getting 14 messages for the same exact add-on service offering.
But after 3 pages, and all these responses to your problem, you just want Bluehost support to explain to you in this forum why they think they have the right to send you spam?
No I want to know why I've gotten 14 reminders so far and why their reminder makes zero mention of how to opt-out of such reminders in the future. The combination of 14 reminders so far plus no mention of opt-out instructions stinks of spam to me. If it's not spam then yes, an explanation of what the problem is from Bluehost would be appreciated.
I feel your pain, but spam happens. But I'm really sorry to hear it's happening to you more than most. I hope you have a better day.
And my point is spam shouldn't happen from a company who is aggressively anti-spam and claims to be all about customer satisfaction and service.
And don't you worry, I'm having a fine day (a fine week as a matter of fact) in spite of your condescending tone. Thanks for your concern.
obfuscate? obfuscate?!? Fine then!
page1ink.
05-02-2006, 07:44 AM
Wes, if you haven't already you need to just contact them directly. Demanding Bluehost responds to you on the forum clearly isn't going to work. Try support@bluehost.com , it's in my quick contacts for a reason.
admin
05-03-2006, 12:05 AM
This is Matt Heaton President of Bluehost.com. I will look into the issue of the multiple email reminders being sent. We are going to continue sending them, but we will add an option that says "DON'T REMIND ME AGAIN ABOUT XYZ DOMAIN" and then we won't sent you anymore.
We do this for people that have domains registered elsewhere but host with us, because 80% of these people think when they signed up that their hosting expiration is the same as their domain registration which clearly isn't the case.
You wouldn't believe the number of support incidents we get where peoples hosting account is fine, but they let their domain lapse. We are then immediately blamed for the problem, and asked why we didn't warn them.
It obviously isn't our fault, but we still want to "hold the hands" of our users to let them know there is a potential problem coming up that they should remidy asap. I know it can be annoying, but it solves more problems than it creates.
Thanks,
Matt Heaton / CEO Bluehost.com
Thanks for the reply Matt. Adding information on how to make the messages stop for those who do not want them is a great step forward to making these reminders feel much less like spam.
The only other standing issue may be the fact that I got 14 of these messages (2 identical messages each day). That seems to be a glitch in the system to me that you guys may want to look at as well.
Thanks again for the response.
phpart
05-03-2006, 12:55 PM
Take it easy it's just emails, they are trying to give you some services
just delete it :rolleyes:
Take it easy it's just emails, they are trying to give you some services
What are they trying to "give" me? I'm fairly certain the service they are advertising to me in these emails is not free so please explain what they are "giving" me?
Either way it's obvious that even Bluehost agrees that there should be some mention of how to get off thier list and those instructions will be added to the emails soon.
You guys can bash me all you want but that won't change the fact that there is a problem with these emails and it's being fixed because of my post here in spite of your ridicule.
You guys can bash me all you want but that won't change the fact that there is a problem with these emails and it's being fixed because of my post here in spite of your ridicule.
Great Job Wes! Keep up the good work!
. .
walker
05-05-2006, 01:53 PM
What are they trying to "give" me? I'm fairly certain the service they are advertising to me in these emails is not free so please explain what they are "giving" me?
They're not, and certainly, two emails a day without the ability to stop more being sent is a nuisance, but at least we know the reasons now and that a resolution is forthcoming.
Glad you got something done, and well done for keeping your cool.
rvandam
05-09-2006, 04:30 PM
We've fixed most of the problems that would have caused you to receive so many emails Wes. Let us know if it happens again.
Just make sure that you have the option in the profile set to not send non-essential emails.
Also, for anyone else if you have a domain that is registered with us and you click on the Renew link for that domain in the Domain Manager, you can also set it to not send you reminders specifically about that domain (you can do this by choosing to let it auto-renew or auto-expire).
Rob Van Dam
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