Tell HN: Triplebyte ignoring account deletion, unsubscribe requests | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: Triplebyte ignoring account deletion, unsubscribe requests

53 pointsthrowaway41324 comments

I have “permanently” deleted my account thru the formal process given by Triplebyte on their website when the last Triplebyte drama occurred a few weeks back. I have also unsubscribed from their corporate emails, their community newsletters, EVERYTHING, multiple times.

And yet, this morning, I receive yet another email from Triplebyte with this text at the bottom:

“You received this email because you have an account with Triplebyte.”

Screenshot proof (see date on deletion email vs the one I just received this morning at 8:40am): https://imgur.com/a/BmrirNH

Edit: issue identified and supposedly resolved - will be sure to post again if I receive any more emails.

Thank you.

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OK, here's what I think happened here. The email above was to a user who applied directly to a company, and that company give them a Triplebyte test (a feature we call screen). This was represented in our system as a separate account. This separate account should absolutely have been deleted when you deleted your account. But it looks like our deletion code was not doing that. Fix is going out now. We're also pulling server logs to see if we can find any other accounts in this state.

Post updated. I appreciate the fix.

A little off topic but I’ve noticed a similar trend with other websites where I select to be removed from their newsletter and then later, sometimes many months later I start receiving email from them again.

The current model we have online for sharing personal information with companies where we give them information irrevocably involves a huge amount of trust. Because no matter what we ask them to do, it’s basically up to them to really delete our data. I wish we had more tools to correct bad behavior beyond public shaming on social media.

This is the reason I always inwardly sigh when I unsubscribe from something and the confirmation page says I unsubscribed from a list named like “${COMPANY_NAME} (${CURRENT_MONTH})”. I know they’ll be back.

Here is a clickable link to the proof:

https://imgur.com/a/BmrirNH

Hey, this is bad. Do you mind sharing some of your information with me by email at guillaume@triplebyte.com so I can investigate what's happening? Is it possible you have multiple accounts with us? Thank you!

Thanks for trying to help out.

Definitely not multiple accounts. It is clear what has happened here.

This is beyond bad. It’s criminal.

So a person at the company offers to help you, and your response is to call him a criminal while he's trying to help you?

Come one now. Don't be absurd. It's very likely there's a mistake in a database somewhere that needs to be sorted out, not some "criminal" behavior.

I actually thanked him for his help.

The company’s repeated actions are indeed criminal - it is illegal to not comply to unsubscribe requests, and I’m clearly not the only one here who has experienced this.

It isn’t some one time slip up. These things are designed, implemented, and signed off on.

Edit: not to mention, my account 1) has been deleted and 2) is still receiving emails. How much more info do you need from me? Anyone who matches that criteria is also clearly having the same issue.

Regardless, it’s hopefully resolved now, and I appreciate that. All I want is to stop getting freaking Triplebyte emails.

You “thanked him for his help” at the same time as calling him a criminal.

No, it’s not generally criminal to make a mistake, and you’re assuming everything else you’ve written.

Ok, can you please quote where exactly I call him, Guillaume, a criminal?

If it wasn't clear, what I was meaning is that the behavior of ignoring unsubscribe requests is criminal. The "this" that he and I both refer to - being the event at hand.

I do apologize if that is unclear. I stand by the fact that ignoring opt-out requests in a timely manner is indeed illegal as defined by the CAN-SPAM Act [1].

> No, it’s not generally criminal to make a mistake

I disagree with your statement here, and actually, this is a perfect example where yes, it indeed can be criminal to make a mistake, if that mistake is failing to oblige by your users' opt-out requests. Even more so in the EU than in the states.

Mistake or not, I was at a point of frustration, having attempted to unsubscribe many, many times now, with and without the help of their support dept, to where I felt the need for this post as well as the language used.

And again, I'm just happy and appreciative it's resolved for myself as well as anyone else in that situation. I hope you have a good rest of your week.

[1] Overview of Act - https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can...

You're confused about criminal and civil code, making a mistake in such as you claim is a civil, not criminal violation.

So don't make up stories about things you don't understand because you need to be a crybaby on the internet.

Please don't cross into name-calling. I appreciate that you were standing up for someone you felt was unfairly treated, but please make sure to stay within the site guidelines while doing so.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You’re right on civil vs criminal, I did confuse those two. I was using the definition of criminal describing an offense against the law. Now I know, thanks for pointing that out!

I took the TripleByte quiz, out of curiosity. I'm a network admin / linux admin and security engineer. You need to know the basics of programming for each of these jobs and that is increasingly so. I'm not a coder or developer though so when TripleByte said I scored exceptionally well, I started to question how reliable and trustworthy the site was. I think they give everyone the same form response to their quiz. Stunts like the one that started this thread solidify that belief.

Thank you for posting, glad to hear I am not alone (tried it years ago, cannot unsubscribe).

The same experience, had to write manual filter.

Deleted mine after the mayhem, haven't heard from them since. Just checked my trash and spam.

Dang, why was this taken down from Ask HN as well as the front page at 9:26am PST?

Why did you delete your account? I'd be interested in knowing why you left. (not affiliated just curious)

Unless I'm behind the news, I think the incident people are referring to is: Triplebyte added a new feature to have a public profile highlighting your skills for your job-hunt. They didn't think it through and made the new profile public by default. Many people who were job-hunting discretely were understandably upset by this.

Thanks for clarifying, Im definitely behind the news (had never heard of triple byte)

FYI, the email address is not properly redacted.

Thanks for the heads up. Edited the URL, but I guess you’re seeing the old link still? Oh well.

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