Toyota Spammers

Over the years the value of email has deteriorated by scumbags of all walks of life peddling junk, spreading virii, and coaxing your personal information through phishing. It’s difficult to rely on email as your primary means of communication these days. On the upside, this distrust plays well into the hands of sales people—many of them would send an email, and then follow-up with a phone call to make sure you receive and read it! The hands-off nature of email, the way to choose whether you want to ignore someone, is not there any longer!

When it comes to cars, I prefer Japanese quality. Being a Honda and Toyota owner, it also gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling that I’m not feeding the unions.

However, the email I received from Toyota this morning, is an embarrassment to them:

Dear Milan:

It’s come to our attention that you may have experienced technical difficulties with the recent email we sent you regarding our $20 FREE gas offer. We apologize for this and would like to take this opportunity to give you the details you may have missed:

[Sales pitch follows]

First, how would they know I “experienced technical difficulties with the recent email”? Second, this is one of those “follow-up calls” by sales reps. “Have you received it? Really? Are you sure? Positive? Have you read it?”

I can imagine low-life wannabe-spammer losers sending something like this, but not a respectable corporation.