I just came back from a 2-week vacation in France. Prior to leaving, I looked at Orange.fr, a large service provider in France that offered, among other things, mobile phone plans.
The idea was to get a prepaid SIM card for my mobile phone, so that I could have a local (French) number to use in case of emergency. So after searching around a bit, I landed on Orange.fr site. I looked at the prepaid plans and added a 15-Euro plan to the shopping cart. I tried to check out, but the site only accepted local French addresses and credit cards to complete the transaction.
Well guess what. Adding an item to my shopping cart on Orange.fr resulted in getting spammed by them every single day for 15 days! Each day, this same email arrived, telling me I had put something in my shopping cart, that its contents will be saved and available, and inviting me to complete the purchase.
This was even more frustrating considering I had indeed tried to check out, but the site had refused to complete the purchase because I was in Canada.
But, there is MORE ! It`s another one of these Impossible to unsubscribe email marketing practices! After a couple of days, I was looking for a way to stop these spam emails. It`s impossible! Look at the writing in the bottom part of the email:
In compliance with the computer bill and rights of January 6th, 1978, you are granted the right to modify or delete your personal information by writing to: Centre Courrier – Orange Service Clients – gestion des donnes personnelles – 33734 Bordeaux cedex 9, and including a proper identification proof.
Not only would you have to write to them by snail mail, but one even has to include a proper ID proof! What complete nonsense!
I mean, come on, Orange.fr, please get a clue!
As a side note: last year, I read a report on the mobile communication costs around the world. Somewhat unsurprisingly, Canada was at the top of the list of most expensive countries for mobile communication plans (followed by the US). I was really surprised by how little mobile communications cost in France. Since I don`t use the system much, I got a 15-Euro prepaid card, and still have most of it available. Even mobile Internet is extremely cheap: 9 Euros/month for unlimited use on a prepaid card. Try to get that here in Canada! As far as I know, you can`t get any kind of Internet access on a prepaid card. Even with a 3-year plan, it will cost around $30-$40 for a meager 500 MB monthly.
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