Consumerist Forums moderator Brian is moderating a problem of his own. His mother, who is mourning the recent loss of their dog Mandy, is receiving a relentless flood of spam email from 1-800 PetMeds with titles such as: “Take Mandy on a picnic this Memorial Day Weekend!” and “Summer showers are around the corner, make sure Mandy is dressed properly!” Considering the fact that Mandy passed only a few days before, the emails are causing Brian’s mother a great amount of grief and tears. He has set up email filters to block the email, but like an intelligent virus the email changes its signature to bypass the filters. Unfortunately, he cannot simply filter the word “Mandy” because his mother is still sending and receiving email regarding her demise. His letter, inside…

Over the past few days, I’ve been having a real problem with 1-800 PetMeds. The odd thing is, it’s not over an order that I placed, it’s with their e-mails. A while back, my mother started ordering heartworm pills from 1-800 PetMeds, because they were about $10 cheaper than the vets. Because of ordering them online, and forgetting to uncheck an e-mail subscriber list box, she got e-mails about special offers and such. No big deal there, until this week.

On Wednesday, we had to put our dog (named Mandy) down. On Friday, my mother was checking her e-mail and had an e-mail from 1-800 PetMeds with the subject “Take Mandy [our dog] on a picnic this Memorial Day Weekend!” 2 days after we put Mandy down, this e-mail comes. It was enough to get my mother worked up into tears. I had her log into her e-mail, and I clicked the unsubscribe link at the bottom, so we wouldn’t get any more e-mails from them – we just don’t need that.

Saturday, she checks her e-mail again, and a second message: “Is Mandy dealing with Spring allergies?” Again, my mother broke into tears. I was furious. I clicked unsubscribe to NOT get their e-mails anymore. So I set up a filter to automatically delete 1-800 PetMeds e-mails. I had to be specific on the filter, so I put a ban on from 1-800 P* (wildcard) and 1-800 PetMeds.

Sunday, yet ANOTHER e-mail: “Summer showers are around the corner, make sure Mandy is dressed properly!” This time, my mother didn’t break down into tears, but this has gone too far. The from in the e-mail: Your PetMed Alert. I blocked that, but who knows when the next e-mail is going to come?

I called them and spoke with a representative on the phone. She looked up the account information and verified that we were NOT taken off the mailing list. I asked her to do so, and she said it would take 7-10 days to remove us from the mailing list. That seems like s bit much, but if it will stop the e-mails from coming, it will be worth it.

I’ve never had this problem trying to get rid of e-mails that I don’t want before. It’s not like these are spam, these are notices from a company that we bought something from again.

I hope that the woman on the phone removing the e-mail address from the list is enough to stop them from coming. Otherwise, I’m not sure what other options I have with 1-800 PetMeds.

We’re sorry to hear about your loss, Brian. According to the CAN-SPAM act of 2003, the law allows 10 business days for businesses to comply with opt-out requests. Hopefully, the spam emails will stop sooner rather than later.

1800 PetMeds Problem [Consumerist Forums]
The CAN-SPAM Act: Requirements for Commercial Emailers [FTC]
(Photo: Getty)

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