A Bad Bet
February 12, 2025
As some loyal readers are well aware, I have a Gmail address that is oddly popular with others. Though things have slowed up in this regard in recent weeks, many people have used that address to create accounts at websites and sign up for mailing lists. On average, this happens about once a week.
The most recent such occurrence came a couple of days ago. Someone in Michigan kindly gave my email address when he signed up for an account with an online gaming site. For the sake of discussion, let’s call them XYZ Betting.
It all started with the usual email. Confirm your email address to activate your account, they say. Which in reality means, you’re all set. Click the confirmation link if you want, but it won’t stop us from creating the account and sending emails to the address you gave us. To us, it really doesn’t matter whether that address is yours or not.
And it was no different this time around. So I followed the well-worn path of going to their website, resetting the password and logging in. Viewing the profile, I saw that the guy gave them a lot of personal information, including his street address and phone number. This guy is serious, I thought. Most just give a name.
In such circumstances, I look for a place to delete the account. I don’t want my email address associated with a phantom account on their files. Places like this love selling email addresses to spammers. But they didn’t offer such an option. As an alternative, I at least try to route the account to some other unsuspecting sucker. Like the guy in Florida who tormented me for nearly three years, signing up with over 200 websites before finally figuring it out. He kind of owes me a few. But again, there was no such option.
Which left me to have to contact support. Which I did.
Someone else signed me up for an account with XYZ Betting without my consent. Please remove it at once. Thank you.
They responded quickly.
Dear Curtis, thank you for reaching out to us.
We take account security very seriously.
We have reviewed your request and have immediately blocked the account associated with your email to prevent any unauthorized access. If you need any further assistance, please let us know.
Best regards,
XYZ Betting Support Team
They take account security very seriously, do they? So seriously that they allow would-be customers to sign up using someone else’s email address. But in any event, this isn’t what I asked for. So I sent a reply.
Forgive me if I was not clear. I did not ask for the account to be blocked. I asked for it to be REMOVED. I want my email address off your files.
Thank you.
This time, there was a long delay before they responded.
Hello Curtis, thank you for your contact.
Please note that there is no predefined timeframe for data retention, however please be assured that your data is safe as we implement a range of security measures and strict protocols, aligned with industry standards, to safeguard the privacy and confidentiality of data.
As stated in our Privacy Policy:
We acknowledge your request to have your XYZ Betting account data erased immediately. However, due to legal and regulatory obligations stated in the Privacy Policy, we are unable to proceed with the immediate deletion as mentioned in the earlier communication.
Rest assured that once these obligations have been fulfilled, we will securely erase all your personal information.
Please note that by registering your XYZ Betting account, you have agreed to comply with the XYZ Betting Terms and Conditions, Terms of Use, our Privacy Policy, and our Cookie Policy. These documents are available on our website and can be accessed both before registration and at any time thereafter for reference.
Best regards,
XYZ Betting Support Team
The bloody gall, I thought. We have legal and regulatory obligations, they say. And you agreed to comply with our terms and conditions. No, I didn’t. The guy in Michigan did. I didn’t agree to anything. He doesn’t have any more authority to agree anything on my behalf than I do to walk next door and sell my neighbor’s truck. So I fired back another response.
Excuse me???
Perhaps you misunderstood. I did not register an XYZ Betting account. Someone else did using my email address. I DID NOT AGREE to comply with any of your terms and conditions.
Therefore, delete the account with my email address at once. You have no right to have that email address on your files.
Please stop giving me these runarounds.
This time, they responded more promptly.
Dear Curtis,
We have processed your request and confirm that your XYZ Betting account has been permanently deleted, and all associated personal data has been removed from our systems.
If you have any further questions or need assistance, please feel free to contact us.
Best regards,
XYZ Betting Support Team
Once again, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. It should hardly have been necessary, however. Clearly, they don’t care about the likes of me, but if only these companies would care enough to verify an email address BEFORE someone signs up, so much of their time and effort could be saved. Not to mention the fact that they probably lost the Michigan guy as a customer.
But sadly, XYZ Betting is yet another outfit that just doesn’t get it.
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