I also hate this, but what rule does that violate? Perhaps 4.5.4?

> 4.5.4 Push Notifications must not be required for the app to function, and should not be used for advertising, promotions, or direct marketing purposes or to send sensitive personal or confidential information.

It's a should and not a must... I'm not sure if they enforce all "shoulds." Also, from a review perspective, how could you tell? These sort of notifications are typically triggered after days (or hours) of inactivity, and I don't think they observe your app that long.

If you, as a user, complained about an app doing this to Apple, I wonder if they'd pull it.

I do not think that Apple has the means to test this in the review, but maybe there should be a way to mark spam notifications somehow.

What I do now is that I complain to the developer/company twitter accounts. Most of the time I receive very hopeful and polite replies and ... nothing gets fixed.

I'm sorry you feel this way, but our market studies have shown that most of our users respond positively to being spammed daily, and almost all of them come back and spend money as a result!!!!111!