intodimensions.com

I’ve been receiving a newsletter from ArabianBusiness. I can’t remember subscribing to it, but I guess I did somewhere along the line. Probably by forgetting to check, or uncheck, a box when filling in a form for something.

In the newsletter it says:

Should you wish to remove your email address from the mailing list please click here.

So I click on “here”. It takes me to Arabianbusiness’ web site, displays a message saying:

Thank you for selecting ArabianBusiness.com newsletters.

Your unsubscription request has been accepted and you have been sent a confirmation email.

You have been sent an confirmation email to this address : ________.
One step left, Please check your inbox shortly and click on the confirmation link provided in the email.

An email arrives, which has another link in it, which I click. On ArabianBusiness.com it then says:

We have received your request to remove your email address from ArabianBusiness.com newsletter list. To confirm your request for (_____), you must complete one of the following steps:

With another link to click on, so I do. On their web site it says:

Your email appears to have already been unsubscribed and the link is no longer valid. If you continue to receive this newsletter please contact the webmaster. (webmaster@arabianbusiness.com)

But I keep getting the newsletter, so I email “webmaster@arabianbusiness.com”, asking them to remove me. A little bit later I get this email:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

webmaster@arabianbusiness.com

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 13): 550 , Recipient unknown

Should it be this hard to just get away from an email newsletter subscription?

And to make matters worse, take a look around the site and see if there’s a “Contact us” page? I’ve been looking long and hard and can’t find it. You have to click on “ITP Digital” at the bottom, then “Contact Us”, and finally decide who you should send your issue to. Now tell me, for example, how do you know, as an average visitor to the site, if you should send your message to the Director, the Creative Director, the Internet Development Manager, the Internet Applications Manager, the Internet Design Manager, the Web Designer, or the Content Manager?