When I wrote about deleting online accounts in May 2022, I mentioned how some organizations were really good about providing clear information to customers about deleting accounts.
How other organizations, like Patreon, failed.
And how Skillshare stood out with their information about deleting your account.
I thought I was moving forward with cleaning up online accounts.
Until I received a marketing email message from an organization I knew I had deleted my account from.
Four months earlier.
Sigh.
It seemed I needed to take extra steps to have my customer account data removed at that organization.
It Shouldn’t Be This Difficult
I remembered the process I had to initially go through to delete this particular online account.
The organization provided no option in their account settings for customers who wanted to delete their account.
There was no information on their website.
Or in their online privacy policy. Or terms of service.
I ended up contacting the organization via their online contact form, asking for my account to be deleted and all my personal information removed from their systems.
Which in my opinion is a poor method for managing customer accounts.
The organization staff replied to me quickly to say my account was deleted.
I thought I was done.
No.
Once again, I contacted the organization.
I sent an email message explaining my account was supposed to be deleted and my information removed from their systems, but I was still receiving email from them.
Their response:
I apologize, your account was deleted and doesn’t actually exist on our site anymore, but we hadn’t deleted you in our mailing list, so you received the email.
I’ve permanently deleted you from our mailing list, so you’ll no longer receive communications from us.
How was I supposed to know my email address was still on their mailing list?
When I ask for my account to be deleted and all my personal data removed from an organization’s systems, I shouldn’t have to detail every possible list, process, etc.
There’s no way I or any other customer can know how many places an organization stores customer account/personal info.
And I shouldn’t have to repeatedly contact the organization about my account/personal info.
Wrapping Up
I know it seems like a rant.
However, it shows how poorly an organization designs their systems when customers have to repeatedly ask for something to be done.
Here’s an opportunity for organizations to do better and respect your customers: review your account deletion process.
