Sorry for those 1,000 plus emails I sent
October 16, 2010 5:39 AM Subscribe
Oh my... I just inadvertently sent out emails to an unknown number of people - probably more than 1,000. What should I do?
Oops! I was setting up an issue tracker for my company today, and I hooked it up to my gmail account. What I didn't realize was that the tracker creates a case for every message in my account, and sends a "thanks for contacting support, here's your case number" reply.
Fortunately, I figured this out before the tracker slurped up all ~7,000 emails messages in my account, but I did reply to about 400.
What's worse - it sends replies to everyone who was CC'ed on the original message.
I sent an apology email to everyone (or just about everyone), signed with my real name and email address. Anything else I can do to mitigate the damage? Should I be worried about any tangible repercussions, other than damage to my reputation?
Oops! I was setting up an issue tracker for my company today, and I hooked it up to my gmail account. What I didn't realize was that the tracker creates a case for every message in my account, and sends a "thanks for contacting support, here's your case number" reply.
Fortunately, I figured this out before the tracker slurped up all ~7,000 emails messages in my account, but I did reply to about 400.
What's worse - it sends replies to everyone who was CC'ed on the original message.
I sent an apology email to everyone (or just about everyone), signed with my real name and email address. Anything else I can do to mitigate the damage? Should I be worried about any tangible repercussions, other than damage to my reputation?
Response by poster: I believe all of the messages are sent via the (hosted) issue tracker's SMTP. I've informed them of the situation, as well.
You're probably right - it's not that big of a deal. It seems big from my end, where I'm looking at the total number or emails sent. I guess most of the recipients will forget about it within a week.
I had no idea that software was going to create a case for and send a reply to every email message that was already in my account.
posted by syzygy at 6:11 AM on October 16, 2010 [1 favorite]
You're probably right - it's not that big of a deal. It seems big from my end, where I'm looking at the total number or emails sent. I guess most of the recipients will forget about it within a week.
I had no idea that software was going to create a case for and send a reply to every email message that was already in my account.
posted by syzygy at 6:11 AM on October 16, 2010 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I sent an apology email to everyone (or just about everyone), signed with my real name and email address.
I don't see what else you can do. Any further communications with them would just compound the problem by sending them more unnecessary emails. I doubt there's anyone who got these emails who is even still thinking about it. It's still upsetting to you because you know about the scale of what happened. But each individual who got the emails just had a momentary "Huh, what's this about?" followed by "Oh, I see, just a mistake." And then they moved on with their lives.
posted by John Cohen at 7:15 AM on October 16, 2010 [7 favorites]
I don't see what else you can do. Any further communications with them would just compound the problem by sending them more unnecessary emails. I doubt there's anyone who got these emails who is even still thinking about it. It's still upsetting to you because you know about the scale of what happened. But each individual who got the emails just had a momentary "Huh, what's this about?" followed by "Oh, I see, just a mistake." And then they moved on with their lives.
posted by John Cohen at 7:15 AM on October 16, 2010 [7 favorites]
Best answer: I guess most of the recipients will forget about it within a week.
A week? More like a millisecond. Really, everyone in the world has experienced some type of email mishap.
Instead of an apology email, next time do nothing or just send a "Please ignore previous email" from the original email account. No need to make people think about it more than necessary.
posted by acidic at 7:22 AM on October 16, 2010 [1 favorite]
A week? More like a millisecond. Really, everyone in the world has experienced some type of email mishap.
Instead of an apology email, next time do nothing or just send a "Please ignore previous email" from the original email account. No need to make people think about it more than necessary.
posted by acidic at 7:22 AM on October 16, 2010 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Instead of an apology email, next time do nothing or just send a "Please ignore previous email" from the original email account. No need to make people think about it more than necessary.
That was my original plan - then I checked my site's logs and realized that I was getting a minor traffic spike. Thought it might be better to send a quick apology than have a bunch of people show up to work on Monday morning and mark it as SPAM.
Hindsight...
posted by syzygy at 7:50 AM on October 16, 2010
That was my original plan - then I checked my site's logs and realized that I was getting a minor traffic spike. Thought it might be better to send a quick apology than have a bunch of people show up to work on Monday morning and mark it as SPAM.
Hindsight...
posted by syzygy at 7:50 AM on October 16, 2010
Best answer: Not to get too chatty, but I've seen far worse things (for example, my boss sending a notification to about a 1000 customers with everyone's email in the CC list, causing a several days long chain of PLEASE TAKE ME OFF THIS LIST emails). It's seriously not a big deal, especially for a one time thing.
posted by empath at 9:05 AM on October 16, 2010
posted by empath at 9:05 AM on October 16, 2010
Best answer: Mint.com just did something very similar to their customers. A quick apology with a short explanation on how it happened seems to be the way to go.
posted by samsara at 2:35 PM on October 16, 2010
posted by samsara at 2:35 PM on October 16, 2010
Best answer: The most important thing to remember in order to keep perspective is that this is an assymetric problem.
You're all: "Holy crap, I just sent A THOUSAND unsolicited emails."
But everyone you emailed is simply: "Meh, one more e-mail I don't care about."
This will blow over quickly. The very small percentage of people who would have been bothered by the e-mail were probably all immediately mollified by the apology.
posted by 256 at 9:09 AM on October 17, 2010
You're all: "Holy crap, I just sent A THOUSAND unsolicited emails."
But everyone you emailed is simply: "Meh, one more e-mail I don't care about."
This will blow over quickly. The very small percentage of people who would have been bothered by the e-mail were probably all immediately mollified by the apology.
posted by 256 at 9:09 AM on October 17, 2010
Response by poster: Update: So far I've only heard from two people about this, both friends of mine, and neither was upset.
I expect that there won't be any more repercussions. Asymmetrical is correct - nobody cares about an extra email or two. It just looks bad from where I'm sitting. Honestly, I'm a little surprised that only 2 people bothered to write me about it. I figured I'd get at least one or two irate SPAM complaints from somebody.
posted by syzygy at 12:01 PM on October 18, 2010
I expect that there won't be any more repercussions. Asymmetrical is correct - nobody cares about an extra email or two. It just looks bad from where I'm sitting. Honestly, I'm a little surprised that only 2 people bothered to write me about it. I figured I'd get at least one or two irate SPAM complaints from somebody.
posted by syzygy at 12:01 PM on October 18, 2010
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The worst that might happen is that you end up on some spammer blacklist somewhere, depending on your network and SMTP configuration. Keep an eye out for messages you send that fail to reach their target in the following weeks, you might need to contact some delisting service/irrate sysadmin to get back into their good graces.
Other than that, four hundred e-mails is a drop in the global ocean of spam - you don't have much to worry about. I suggest you stop preemptively sending out any more apologies - you are just bothering people more. If any of the recipients contact you about the incident, you can then reply with a polite (non-canned) apology.
posted by Dr Dracator at 6:03 AM on October 16, 2010