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Groupon’s Excessive Emails Amount to Spam

For months, MrConsumer’s email box has been flooded with emails from Groupon.

Groupon sells discount certificates to various restaurants and local service establishments. I usually buy my twice-a-year oil changes through Groupon for my car repair shop. The price unfortunately has crept up, so I did not buy it from them in November for my December servicing.

That did not stop Groupon, or perhaps even encouraged it, to literally deluge me with emails — often multiple emails an hour for oil changes and more.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Here is a list of the emails that Groupon sent to me this past November alone — 209 of them, if you can believe it.

Hertz

Scroll down the list.

Sometimes they are minutes apart, and up to a dozen a day. And emails from Groupon in December was even worse — 313 in total!

Congress passed the CAN-SPAM law in 2003. Contrary to popular belief, it does not ban unsolicited commercial email (spam) or limit how much an advertiser can send you. What it does is set up various requirements including having to have a simple way for the recipient to opt-out of getting more such emails from that advertiser.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Groupon goes a step further and says they allow you to adjust how often you hear from them.

Groupon opt-out and adjust frequency

Great… but there is no such option when you click their link.

*MOUSE PRINT:

No way to adjust email frequency

I don’t want to opt-out altogether because I want to know of a great deal on oil changes at my repair shop or membership discounts at Costco, but I don’t want minute-to-minute updates.

So, we asked the PR folks at Groupon why they send so many emails a day to customers, and whether they honestly believe that up to a dozen emails a day is appropriate. We also wanted to know what happened to their promised option to reduce the frequency of emails.

The company’s customer service department responded, and in a moment of candor said:

We sincerely apologize for the volume of emails you have been receiving and for the frustration this has caused.

You are absolutely right that receiving numerous emails in a single day is not a positive customer experience. While we intend to share relevant offers, it is clear that in this case, our frequency did not align with your preferences, and we take responsibility for that.

We would like to inform you that you have the option to limit the number of emails you receive from us on a daily basis.

In fact, the option to limit the number of emails is an all or nothing option rather than providing the ability to select a number.

So to end Groupon’s seeming inability to sensibly limit the number of emails it sends to customers, I opted out on January 1.

This whole experience suggests that the federal law needs to be amended to ban excessive emailing to consumers. What do you think?

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Amazon Sued Over Fake Sale Markdowns

Two consumers recently sued Amazon over fake discounts advertised during Prime Day this past July.

They allege that big percentage discounts are offered off of fake list prices to make shoppers think they are saving a bundle. In fact, the lawsuit asserts, that the savings are often far less than claimed, that the same sale price had been offered previously, or that Amazon never charged that stated list price in the previous 90 days.

As an example, the complaint says this headphone was supposedly 44% off:

Amazon headphone

The consumers’ lawyers contend:

But, in fact, Amazon does not deliver the promised 44% off because it uses a Fake Prior Amazon Price in calculating 44% supposed savings. While Amazon lists a Fake Prior Amazon Price of $134.99, in fact, these Skullcandy headphones have often been offered at the same “sale” price during the past 90 days, and never cost more than $110. … As the headphones were never offered on Amazon for the fake strike through price of $134.99, a customer buying these headphones during Prime Day 2025 overpaid because Amazon did not deliver the 44% savings it promised.

MrConsumer checked CamelCamelCamel.com and in fact that headset was offered at the full $134.99 price for about 10 separate days in the first half of 2025.

Amazon has made some modest strides in explaining what it means by “list price” in its product listings. That almost invisible little “i” reveals their definition.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Amazon List Price definition

And you can see Amazon’s own price history chart by clicking the Rufus button at the top left of the screen.

That said, for many years, Amazon and others have used exaggerated or rarely charged list prices to give shoppers a false sense of the savings being advertised and the product’s value.

It may be a while before this case proceeds because the judge placed a temporary hold on the proceedings while a similar case is being heard in a Washington appeals court.

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Can AI Keep a Secret?

Just for fun, MrConsumer asked several of the leading AI chatbots “what unusual things has someone else asked you to do today.” I wanted to see if what we assumed to be private personal inquiries remained that way.

Microsoft Copilot

Oof, today’s been a wild ride already. Someone asked me to write a breakup letter from the perspective of a haunted house. […] Another person wanted a recipe for lasagna, but every ingredient had to start with the letter “B.” […] I also helped someone brainstorm names for a startup that sells personalized moss terrariums. One of the top contenders? “Moss Boss.” I kind of love it. [Emphasis added]

I was a little shocked by the third answer. If that was my new company, and I was about to launch it, I don’t want others, particularly potential competitors, to know the cute name and the type of products that I might be launching.

How does Microsoft protect my data when using Copilot?

*MOUSE PRINT:

Your personal interactions with our services are kept private and are not disclosed without your permission. We remove information that may identify you, like names, phone numbers, device or account identifiers, sensitive personal data, physical addresses, and email addresses, before training AI models. [Microsoft privacy]

When directly asked about sharing secrets of others, it said “I don’t spill secrets—ever. Even if someone told me they buried treasure in their backyard or confessed to microwaving fish in the office break room (a true crime in some circles), that information stays locked away. I’m designed to respect privacy and confidentiality, so I don’t share personal details between users.”

Google Gemini

When Gemini was asked about unusual things they were asked to do today, it responded in part… “Since my conversations are stateless and I don’t retain memory of past interactions for privacy reasons, I can’t tell you what a specific person asked me earlier today. Each conversation is a fresh start.” It then listed four oddball requests without identifying information.

Chat GPT

Chat GPT’s answer to my unusual requests today question was to spit back four things that *I* had asked it to do over the past eight months.

Claude AI

Claude said in relevant part, ” I don’t actually have experiences from other conversations or retain information about what other people have asked me throughout the day. Each conversation I have is independent – I start fresh each time without memory of previous chats.”

Perplexity AI

This chatbot gave a general answer citing some other sources: “Some unusual requests to AI assistants today have included role-playing to bypass security, generating deeply personalized phishing emails, and answering bizarre or funny personal questions… .”

Meta AI

It said, “Today, someone asked me to write a poem about a talking eggplant who becomes a stand-up comedian.”

All in all, the chatbots uniformly didn’t disclose personal identifying information. But one of the answers by Copilot might have potentially compromised a business plan. So, be careful what information you share when using AI.