We get reams of it. Yes, I know we can have our names removed from some magical pixie list somewhere, but I’m so busy shredding the crap that’s already come, I don’t have time to investigate. We’re going to be moving again soon anyway, so I’d have to undertake the process again.
We’re getting crap for us; for the business we started & folded without ever actually doing anything but registering it (oops, we sucked) SIX YEARS AGO; and for my crazy-ass mother-in-law whose evil presence infected our household for a period of eight months BACK IN 2000 (they look like letters from collection agencies, so I suppose they can be forgiven for continuing the search for her deadbeat self).
I did find time today to leave a vitriolic message for our former insurance agent. Third piece from them this week, offering us quotes. It felt sooooo good to shriek into their answering machine:
"Yes, I’m calling because this piece of mail in my hand says I should. You’re offering me great quotes for term life insurance in Illinois. Because you’re STUPID! We don’t LIVE IN ILLINOIS ANY LONGER. Which you should know, because you addressed this stupid envelope to us at our new home here in IOWA!
And you should know, but you don’t because you’re STUPID, that we no longer live in Illinois because WE CANCELLED OUR POLICY WITH YOU since we now live in IOWA, and you don’t sell insurance in Iowa, you sell it in Illinois.
What’s even more amazing is that WE BOUGHT LIFE INSURANCE FROM YOUR COMPANY before we left Illinois! You gave me the name and number of the person to call! But you’ve forgotten that, because you’re STOOOOOOOOOPID!"
I’m on a list somewhere that apparently serves all the eco-liberal concerns that ever existed. Save the Whales, PETA, Sierra Club, you name it. How do I know that it’s just one list?
My name is spelled wrong, that’s why. Not the first name, which gets misspelled often enough that it doesn’t even phase me any more, but my last name. Even if I were interested in their causes, there’s not much I can do about it now, so there!
I like junk mail. Of course, I rarely get any other kind, so it gives me a reason to go to the mail box everyday. Although, now that I think of it, I haven’t had any junk mail lately, either. The last bit I got had 65 return address labels with roses on them (for a cystic fibrosis (which kids mispronounce as “65 Roses”, apparently) charity). I haven’t actually used any of them, but it was a nice little surprise.
I just got one yesterday for NPR and one a week ago asking for a campaign contribution for the ND Dem Party. I’m thinking “targeted marketing” isn’t a factor here.
Hey, you want address labels? Make a donation to any of the humane society type charities. Just one. I bet even a single buck would be enough.
In return you will get a life time supply of address labels. Guaranteed. And not only from the society you donated to, because they evidently trade sucker lists with each other.
That’s not all, though. You will also get self-stick name plates for your books. Key chains. Book marks. Every day will be like Christmas when you open your mail box.
Of course all these presents will have pictures of really sad looking puppies and kittens with eyes so big they were clearly gotten on some unfortunate tabby by an overly randy ET… On the plus side, they do seem to take great pains to spell your name correctly.
You may also receive calendars. They will be printed on such thin paper that if you actually hang one up by the nail hole in the center of the top, both top corners will sag down on either side.
This is a feature not a bug though: the flaps will cover at least 40% of the illo of the month, and with any luck that will hide those hideous alien eyes from your sight.
I have a foolproof method for getting off of those irritating junk mail lists. If they have a postage-paid envelope, I write “Deceased–please remove from your mailing list” in big red letters on the response card and send it back to them. It takes just a few seconds, and it works like a charm.
Junk mail is why I will never belong to any book-of-the-month club again. It’s not enough to sell overpriced books, they have to sell your address to everyone. Bastards. I don’t donate or buy from any organization that sells my address.
I still get junk mail for people who moved out of here over ten years ago. :rolleyes:
I was actually stockpiling those labels. I’ve lived in the same place for 26 years and I bet I could have actually used them in the last 26 years.
Of course I didn’t start getting them en masse until about a year ago…and now I am moving
Luckilly for me the address is my parents’ house so I can still use them as safe returns for now.
I want to somehow tell the HSUS that I give to them whenever I can and I wish wish wish wish that they would take the $50/year they spend on sending me doohickeys in the mail and put it towards keeping a dog alive in a shelter.
Pisses me the fuck off, too. I give you money, so you can go, you know, ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING, and all you’re really interested in doing is GETTING MORE MONEY! It’s enough to make you quit giving entirely.
Even Miss Manners had a column on that recently.
Rude Rude, Fucking Rude! (she didn’t put it that way, though).
I would have very little garbage if I didn’t get junk mail. But it doesn’t bother me too much, I guess. It seems like a huge waste, but it doesn’t bother me.
I donate to charities periodically and get a lot of those keychain, piggy banks, things like that - mostly from humane society. And yeah you can get swamped with address labels. If you don’t make a donation for a couple of years they eventually drop you off the list.
I always assumed that the doohickeys/thank you gifts they mail you were probably donated by whatever company manufactures them as a tax write off; not that your donation is actually “buying” the gift or the charity is paying for it. I’ve donated items to groups for charity resale; people buy the item to contribute to charity but the item was donated to begin with, so all the money is still being put to good use. Kind of like things you buy at Salvation Army. They still spend a lot on postage I imagine though.
I donated to WWF once and wrote on the ticket that I didn’t want the little stuffed bear that their flyers were offering, to just use the donation. They sent me a canvas tote bag instead. I actually use that though, so no big deal I guess.
This reminds me of amazing junk mail I’ve been getting since I moved here to NYC. My father and I share first and last names, but we have different middle names. I started getting junk mail with his middle initial instead of mine. I didn’t think much of it, it could have been any random letter AFAIK. The kicker was when I received a piece with his middle initial and the name of his company on it.
There must be 1000 people with our first and last names, yet they somehow equated me with him even though we haven’t shared an address in nearly a decade. Bizarre.
You know, I’ve been pissed off recently because I made sure to make a donation to the humane society before I moved to my new address and still haven’t recieved my free address labels! I actually had to pay for the damn things from one of those cheapy label places, which was about 8 weeks ago, and STILL, no address labels have graced my mailbox.
So very, very annoyed. :mad:
Of course, a tiny part of me is grateful that my donation may, just may actually be being used to help those sad looking puppies and kittens on those blessed address labels instead of being used to pay for more address labels for people who have not asked for them, but you know, ultimately selfisness wins and the annoyance takes over once again.
heh, you think YOU have it bad? As a social liberal, fiscal conservative with causes, I get mailings from EVERY SINGLE POLITICAL ENTITY known to man. All because I happen to be both a NRA member and an ACLU member.
USPS Forms 2150 (and 1500) can be used to stop all mailings from specific senders.
I’ve heard the USPS began offering the service because people were complaining about risque, annoying or pornographic mailings they were receiving. You can block as many different sender’s junk as you wish, from any type of sender; religious, political, commercial or other.
