Trouble unsubscribing
Occasionally you get a member who is having trouble unsubscribing. By the time they've got round to contacting the mods team they may be quite irate as a result of numerous unsuccessful attempts to unsubscribe. Be sympathetic.
Some reasons a member may be having trouble unsubscribing (and some solutions)
- They just really can't figure out how to do it
- They've set up two accounts and have only unsubscribed from one
- They've unsubscribed from offer and wanted posts, but not other notifications
The first thing to do when a member is having trouble unsubscribing is to have a look for them on your membership list. In the above situations, when you do search in members you should see them. In which case you can either remove them yourself or send them Unsubscribe|instructions on how to do it.
To leave Freegle Direct a member needs to log in, go to Settings, scroll down to the details of the groups they are members of and click the 'Leave' button. They will be asked to confirm they do want to leave, once confirmed they are gone.
A member can click on emails sent from your group to them, but sometimes they get confused between leaving the community or just stopping receiving those particular emails/notifications. To unsubscribe completely from a group they must log in (to ensure that other people can't accidentally or deliberately unsubscribe them), which is enabled when clicking the leave link. See Erasing Account by Mistake below for explanation of 'limbo period' when members delete their account.
Erasing all personal information
Members are entitled under Data Protection to 'be forgotten'. If a member wishes this, they need to log into the site and go to https://www.ilovefreegle.org/settings and use the Unsubscribe button. (They can also access the Settings page by clicking on the three-line menu button at the top right, or Terms or Privacy at the bottom left.)
This gives a member opportunity to unsubscribe from individual communities/groups or to unsubscribe altogether and delete their account.
Erasing account by mistake
Sometimes members erase their account rather than unsubscribing from a particular community or wanting to stop receiving certain types of notifications.
In January 2024 a new feature was put in place, which allows a grace period for members to reinstate their account. Explanation: https://discourse.ilovefreegle.org/t/change-to-unsubscribe/7026
While the member is in “limbo” before their account is removed, their open posts status is:
- The posts should no longer show on the web/app, so they shouldn’t get any replies via that route.
- They might get replies from emails that had been sent out.
- Those replies will go into the Chat for the deleted user but won’t get sent out.
- If the user were to reactivate their account, then they’d see them and they’d be sent out at that point.
- When the grace period expires and their account is fully deleted then their posts are marked as withdrawn.
Nothing works?
Contact the Support Team (support@ilovefreegle.org) to ask if they can find out what the problem is, providing all the details you have got so far.
