Got a phone call from our old long distance provider this morning. He was quite dismayed that we’d discontinued our service, and was curious as to why.
My wife cheerfully told him that our new LD provider had offered us three months of free LD, as well as a $50 check to change over!
He was kind of bumfuzzled after that. Plainly, he was prepared to make offers and concessions, but that was a deal he wasn’t authorized to touch, you know?
I get a lot of junk mail. I mean, I used to get a lot, but after going back to school and getting my teaching certification, the junk mail has increased to a flood; the school apparently finances some of its operations by peddling my information to every junk mail outfit on the face of the earth.
So, naturally, I throw away a lot of mail. Every day, between the street and the front door, I make a little stop at the trash can, and throw away at least half of my daily post, mostly without bothering to open it. I don’t want any more credit cards. I’m not in the market for a new car this year, unless you’re giving them away free. I’m not interested in buying any real estate right now. I don’t want a new cable provider, I’m not interested in your DVD club, and I don’t want a cell phone.
…but I do tend to stop when I see the magic words CHECK ENCLOSED on the outside of the envelope.
Most of the time, this is crap, of course. Some LD company offers me three whole dollars for taking the time to open the envelope (and cashing the check authorizes them to switch my LD service over). Sorry, boys. Fifty bucks is enough to tempt me, especially if I can switch back whenever I want. Three dollars is enough to make me ponder if it’s worth the trouble or not… and it ain’t.
So, no, I still read the fine print… but all too often, I feed the whole thing, check and all, into the shredder.
Reminds me of a while back, when some outfit was sending out nickels. Seriously. Nickels, glued to the little form (as compensation for my time, in reading this important message!)
Y’know what? I’d probably view my junk mail much more kindly if they paid me to read the stuff.
I don’t want a cell phone; I’ve already got one, and it works, and why do I wanna mess with yours? No, don’t bother, I’m not listening. But… if you offered me ten bucks, I might stop to listen. And no, don’t make it a ten-dollar check that authorizes you to rape my bank account sideways if I cash the thing.
This got me to thinking: how much would a given piece of junk mail have to pay, no obligation, no strings attached, to make me stop and read it and ponder whether or not I was honestly interested in the services?
Credit cards: forget it. More than once, I’ve fallen for a credit card offer where they offered me a huge line of credit, whereupon as soon as I got the card, they promptly charged me $1000 in fees… to the point where I actually owed them money, before I’d ever actually charged anything on the card! No, credit card companies have abused my good will too often. I’m never going to trust them.
…but… cell phone outfits? Auto dealerships? Real estate offers? How much would each outfit have to include in the mail to get you to read it, and possibly respond?
