Q. I have started receiving regular emails from a very
old friend inviting me to avail myself of the services of the wealth management company in which he is a partner. Since I am penniless, and from the uncharacteristically humour-free tenor of these letters, I can tell that I was never meant to be a recipient, and that my email address has somehow osmosed from his personal contacts to his customer database. That other, equally impecunious old friends have received the same letters would seem to confirm this. But we know that pointing out that our respective net worths preclude us from becoming his clients would greatly embarrass him (he is painfully sensitive to issues of etiquette), as would simply asking him to remove us from his business mailing list. What would you suggest, Mary?
S.C., Greenwich Village, NYC A. Deal with this by sending your old friend a return email which gives the impression it is destined for everyone within your personal contacts list. Write ‘Dear All. Sorry to send out a round robin but, because of the high risk of email viruses, I have programmed my inbox to receive personal emails only at this address. Please send anything other than personal emails to’ — then provide a hotmail or gmail address which can be easily set up and need never be checked since only one of your friends will have it.
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