Tesco - From Data Miners to Data Fumblers?

It surprises not at all that Tesco have been investigated by the ICO for their data management practices. I have first-hand experience of how unbelievably arse-witted they are with this stuff. I've had an account with them for a while - Tesco Clubcard stuff, and I have shopped online in the past, nothing special. A month or three ago, I started getting emails from them about store promotions and so forth. However, the emails all cheerfully introduced themselves by hailing me as "Ms Wipata". I am not, nor ever have been, Ms Wipata. I therefore forwarded on the message to their support department saying, please sort this out, for I am not she.

Tesco did get in touch with me, and although my contact didn't really get the fact that I was receiving mails for someone else, we basically agreed they wouldn't contact me any more. Fine. Nothing changed. I wouldn't mind so much but the frequency of their promo emails has gone up to the point of Spam - once every couple of days now I'm getting a mail to Ms Wipata. Furthermore, while there's an "unsubscribe" option in the email, every time I click it I just get a blank screen.

The irony is Tesco have in the past been lauded as being masters of their subscriber data - they own Dunnhumby, the company which was essentially built on making sense of Clubcard information (although it was an external company, and inhousing it may not have been a great long-term idea after all). In fact, I have a mini-series of gripes to settle with big firms with whom I do business. Look out for Tom Tom and Sky, coming soon.