Edward Ongweso Jr reports:
Wayfair found itself in hot water after comedy writer Ariel Dumas tweeted a story about the company calling her on the phone as she browsed its website—on Halloween.
“It was a Wayfair employee saying that they noticed I was browsing their website,” she later tweeted. “[S]o happy creepy Halloween I guess.”
In an email to Wayfair, Motherboard asked if the company obtained explicit consent from customers to use phone data in this way and if the company could point to where in its public policies this was stated.
Read more on Vice, via Joe Cadillic.
I had a similar eye-opening experience recently, but with Under Armour. I have purchased from them online in the past and get their email marketing, which is fine. But when I clicked on a link to go look at a particular sale, I regretted it later. After looking at a few items in their sale, and not finding anything in my size that interested me, I left the site.
Only to receive an email from Under Armour telling me why I should go buy the items I had been looking at (even though they didn’t have them in my size? Seriously?). And the next day, I got another email telling me that those items were worth taking a second look. No, they weren’t. But more to the point, I do not want such communications from Under Armour or any other e-tailer I do business with. Maybe it’s automated, but it feels creepy and aggressive marketing that I dislike.
But for now, lesson learned. I will never go to their site from their emails again.
That call was beyond creepy. As for what happened with Under Armour, it’s happened to me before with a couple other companies. The first time was a shock; any time after that, not so much. Last year I was on Amazon looking at a toy. I decided to check Walmart also to see if I could get it cheaper, which I could – $10 cheaper. When I went back to Amazon to look at some other toys, lo and behold, that specific toy had been priced to match Walmart’s price! I was shocked, but I shouldn’t have been.