At noon on May 31st, I sent an e-mail to support@zacks.com headlined, “Get me off your database, damnit.”
My misadventure with Zacks started months before, when I made the mistake at some other financial website of clicking on an ad from Zacks.
Then the e-mail started coming in. Various come-ons to buy something I didn’t want. Day in. Day out.
Finally, I’d had enough. I clicked on a paragraph at the bottom of the spam mail that said, “If you would prefer to not receive future profit-producing emails from Zacks.com the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service, then please click here and confirm your request."
I clicked, and got a screen inviting me to unsubscribe. Which I did.
I quickly got back a message that said sorry, the e-mail address I was giving them was not in their database.
Huh? They had just e-mailed me at that address. I went through the process again. Same result. And several days later, still again, producing the same result yet another time.
Finally I wrote to the only Zacks e-mail address that seemed to apply to my problem, support@zacks.com.
My message to them – the one headlined “Get me off your database, damnit” – said:
“I keep receiving e-mail at the address [redacted]. I keep writing you to stop it. I keep getting messages back from you that this address is not in your database.
I think you are in violation of the law. If I receive one more – one more – e-mail from any Zacks entity, I will blog this all over the Internet.
Stop it! Just stop e-mailing me! Stop it!
I didn’t get a reply from the “support” people at Zacks. But since then, on two successive business days, I’ve received two more pieces of spam from Zacks.com. One offered me an “insider opportunity,” extended “but only until tonight.”
The other is trying to sell me the Zacks “Research Wizard” with the offer of a free trial. It tells me the product Zacks is selling is "like a license to steal," which sounds to me like not just poetic license, but a guarantee of investment results, in violation of FCC regulations. And it scolds, “...why haven’t you jumped on this opportunity?”
I’ll tell you why, Zacks. Because Zacks is a pain in the butt that does lousy research, that’s why. I have a Fidelity account, and whenever a list of analysts’ ratings of stocks contains the Zacks name, Zacks is almost inevitably near the bottom of the StarMine Accuracy scores.
Examples: Coca-Cola, 36 out of possible 100. Johnson and Johnson, 15 out of a possible 100. 3-M, 21 out of a possible 100. Pitney-Bowes, 21 out of a possible 100. Most of these stocks give the best analysts scores in the 90s.
The truth is, – based on their consistently pathetic StarMine accuracy ratings – Zacks couldn’t correctly guess the weather in a snowstorm, much less analyze stocks in any consistent and trustworthy way. But they can eternally pester you.
They seem to be experts at violating even the wishy-washy the CAN-SPAM act of 2003. They not only ignore your unsubscribe messages, but also lie about having you in their database while regularly sending e-mails to you on database autopilot.
What the victims of Zacks need is a law firm to launch a class action suit against the spammers at Zacks.
18 comments:
I am totally onboard with going after them too. They are terrible!
Thanks for the heads-up. Almost clicked on it but decided to check if I could find anything good or bad about Zacks. You were about 8 or 10 down the Google hit list
I am on this research wizard service. Today is my first day on their two weeks service. May I know how I can unsubscribe?
You wanna unsubscribe? Me too. Lotsa luck. If you find a way that works, let me know.
Yours very crankily,
The New York Crank
I too have been trying to get Zach's to stop the deluge of email that is coming from them. to I found an unsubscribe link on this page, http://www.zacks.com/privacy.php , It did recognize my email and I unchecked every box. We'll see if it works.
I also went to their website and unchecked every box for subscriptions, even though I never signed up for an account. I gave my email and then they wanted personal information and verifications and I backed out of it. Well I have gotten spam from them every day since.
Zacks.com are scuzzbag spammers. Somebody needs to get their email addresses and spam them with as many copied repeat addresses as you can muster. If everybody does this it floods their inbox with junk that they will sift through, at first. I did this years ago to Microsoft after they spammed me with over 5000 emails asking them to stop. They stopped and my Hotmail account got deleted (I wasn't using it but only signed up for it until they started telling me personal things about my computer???) I don't know how.
Make sure you cut and paste the 50 To: emails into the CC: and BCC: boxes.
As a marketing instructor at a private university, I am going to start using them as an example of "marketing gone wrong." It appears that Zack's thinks that irritating potential customers is good business. Fly by night companies like this never get the message and will never learn.
I just e-mailed everyone on the sites contact list attaching this post. Got a response from one that he would take care of it. I told all on the contact list that I would send multiple e-mails each time I received an unsolicited e-mail. I would suggest you do that. It seemed to get some attention.
I've been getting 6 a yes 6 of their stock reports sometimes twice a day and have done exactly the same thing & they refuse to contact me...or take me off "any and all emailing lists"... What can be done, surely this is harassment and not legal...
S. elrod
after receiving a dozen emails from Zaks (never having signed on in the first place), I attempted to unsubscribe via the link in email. That took me to the main login page, and no unsubscribe options.
Not wishing to login, I requested login name and password based on my email. That never materialized, but I got yet another spam email, this time with link to "unsubscribe all".
I clicked it, and got a message "Unsubscribed".
We'll see what happens tomorrow.
P.S. Writing to support does not work.
I'm trying another tack..... just updated my profile on their account page to change name, phone, address, and email to see if that does the job.
A while ago I signed up to receive their daily emails and their weekly summary. Then a couple of months ago (May 2015) I started receiving these spammy sensational emails that are totally different from their regular emails.
When you click to unsubscribe, it takes you to the login screen. I logged in and unchecked everything. The normal daily and weekly emails stopped, but the damm spammy fear/greed emails kept coming. I replied to pros@zacks.com but they still send me spam every week.
It appears the only way to stop receiving these emails is to add a "filter" in your email. In Gmail, go to Settings -> Filter. Set up a filter for any emails sent from pros@zacks.com to go straight into the trash.
Date - July 26, 2015.
I am facing the same issue. I have sent an email to their support group twice ... Sick of receiving multiple emails from them everyday!
If you have gmail google will notify them to take you off the mail list
I have had the same problem and spoke to the FTC Representative today. They have recieved a lot of complaints about Zacks.com and they recommend filing a formal complaint at https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0038-spam.
If a large number of complaints are received, a class action can be automatically initiated.
I signed up for the free month trial, and unsuspectingly got a $380 charge for zacks ultimate a few days ago... what?? I do not want this. In fact I tried to usubscribe from their emails multiple times but was unable. I am hoping I can get the charge reversed. Zacks also has no way to delete your account or remove your payment info. I am hoping they email me back or I will call tomorrow.
Stay away from Zacks, it is a scam.
The above is all true-- I mistakenly subscribed to a "free" report (which wasn't very helpful at all) and caught in their web. Laughably, at first their "click here to unsubscribe" link wasn't even present. After a week of this, there was a link-- but it was broken. I've fallen into their web and need help. This is 8 years after this post has been written-- unfortunately they are still in business.
If you have a Gmail account, search up 'Zacks' and that will pull up every email they've sent you. Select all, click an icon that looks like three vertical dots, and then create a filter for them that automatically sends them to the trash.
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