You can tell a lot about the ethics and business practices of a company by their marketing practices. If they are obnoxious at marketing, they are likely to be obnoxious to deal with in general. I therefore tend not to do business with companies who engage in slimy marketing practices. You might have guessed this from my Generic reply to unsolicited vendor sales emails.
With that in mind, I’m writing today to tell you why you absolutely, positively should not do business with the compliance management vendor RegScale.
In May 2022, RegScale sent me spam through MailChimp. MailChimp’s acceptable use policy prohibits emails to people who have not opted in, so with this very first email RegScale was already engaging in shady practices and therefore skating on thin ice as far as I’m concerned. I unsubscribed via the link at the bottom of the email and sent a complaint to MailChimp.
Just a week later, RegScale spammed me again, this time through HubSpot. HubSpot’s acceptable use policy also prohibits emails to people who have not opted in, and it requires customers to promptly honor opt-out requests, so this email was a double violation of HubSpot’s AUP. I unsubscribed via the link at the bottom of the email; sent a complaint to HubSpot; and sent a complaint to the sender of the message at RegScale, demanding that they do whatever is necessary to ensure that no one from their company ever emails me again.
Today, eight months later, RegScale spammed me a third time, this time through ExactTarget, a.k.a., SalesForce Marketing Cloud. ExactTarget’s anti-spam policy also prohibits emails to people who have not opted in. I unsubscribed via the link at the bottom of the email and sent a complaint to ExactTarget, CC’ing the sender of the email and the marketing mailbox at RegScale.
Let’s review:
- RegScale used three different marketing platforms to spam me in eight months. At best this is because they’re so chaotic that they’ve been unable to settle on an individual marketing platform for any length of time. At worst it’s because they got kicked off of the first two platforms for spamming.
- Each of RegScale’s three spam messages to me was sent in violation of the platform it was sent through.
- RegScale has ignored three different unsubscribe requests.
Taken all together, this is a huge red flag. If you give your business to this company, you will regret it.
P.S. I just received a response to today’s complaint from the CEO of the company: “Sincere apologies for the inadvertent email. We’ll ensure you are removed from all our lists.” I responded in part:
The fact that you called it “inadvertent” when you spammed me three separate times, via three separate marketing platforms, all three times in violation of the AUP of the platform the spam was sent through, and ignored three separate unsubscribe requests, is a sure sign that your apology is insincere and you don’t actually care about doing the right thing, so thanks for confirming my decision to call you out publicly and not do business with you in the future.
