On November 26, I contacted The March of Dimes through a form on their Web site, asking them to remove me from their postal mailing list. (This was not because of a specific grievance against The March of Dimes; I’m trying to get us removed from all mailing lists to reduce wasted time dealing with junk mail and damage to the environment from mailings that go straight to recycling.)
Their Web form asked for an email address, which I gave them, so that they could respond to my request. As is my practice, I gave them an organization-specific email address, so that I could track what they did with it. I also checked the option on the Web form telling them that I didn’t want to receive any bulk email from them.
They never responded to my postal unsubscribe request.
They did, however, disregard my specific instructions about bulk email — I received spam from them yesterday.
It has been my experience that there are many worthy charitable organizations which don’t send spam. I therefore refuse to support organizations which do, and I discourage others from supporting them as well.
Sadly I have to agree with Jonathan. The MoD is very persistent in their solicitations. It took a very long time to get off their lists and then they started sending more junk out of the blue. (despite DMA listing they claim to honor) I donate a fair bit of money to charities, but not MoD. Such “hard-sell” tactics and failure to honor requests to opt out are not practices of a reputable organization. There are many honorable causes claimed by less than honorable charities.
First of all, unless the March of Dimes paid the bills for your son’s care and the hospital would have thrown him out on the street if they hadn’t, it’s baseless to claim that “if it weren’t for the March of Dimes… [you] wouldn’t have [your] son today.”
Second, as I noted in my blog posting, there are plenty of other organizations doing work in the same area as the the March of Dimes that don’t spam people or send people bulk mail without their permission or even against their express wishes.
Having said all of that, the March of Dimes hasn’t sent me a bulk mailing since February 2008, and they removed me from their bulk email list when I asked them to in December 2007, so they are many steps ahead of some of the other awful organizations I’ve had to deal with. Therefore, I retract my recommendation for people to refrain from supporting them.
It is a pain to get too much bulk e-mail, but to discourage people to support such a good cause because of it isnt right. My son was born at just 26 weeks and if it werent for the March Of Dimes and the work they do I wouldnt have my son today.