Opinion: My least favorite spam is nagging spam

I get a large volume of email every day. Part of that is always quite a lot of spam.

Now I don’t begrudge someone trying to make a living, and I understand that sometimes, they’re going to send me something unexpected.

But there are a few trends that annoy me.

The incorrectly targeted email

There’s a company out there selling access to email lists that has my company listed as a recruitment company. We’re not. I won’t shame this company by naming them, at least not today.

I can’t tell you how many emails I get with how someone noticed that we were in the recruitment business and then offered something that they think will help. Or I was looking at your website and I noticed you do recruiting.

It’s bad enough that they bought access to a dodgy list, but worse that they then lie about it.

Nagging spam

A worse trend that’s becoming all too common now, is what I call nagging spam.

This is where someone sends me an unsolicited email, and when I ignore it, they then start a series of increasingly nagging emails. You must know the type. It’s the just wanted to make sure you did see my last email or the I didn’t hear back from you, and I know you’re probably busy, but please let me know.

Some even get a little nasty. How can they ever think that’s going to be appealing?

This type of email is way more annoying than the initial email.

If you send someone an email, and they ignore it, just leave it at that. Don’t be the person who starts the nagging email chain. Please.

2025-07-25