Junk Mail

A little while ago Child became frustrated with all the junk mail we were receiving, so she searched online about how to get rid of it. She filled out some forms to get off the credit card companies' lists, mailed one or two things to various companies to get off their lists, but that didn't handle some of the more infrequent fliers from smaller companies.

This afternoon, we started calling a few of them to see about getting off their lists. We got some interesting responses.

A car dealership told us they used a 3rd-party and gave us their number, but the supervisor I talked to, in an unusual fit of candor for a car salesman, told us that he hated mailed advertisements too and his wife had once spent a year trying to get rid of them. It didn't work--he explained that there were 400 different ways for your address to get on mailing lists, and that companies like RC Willey will sell your address to other companies.

He hastened to add that "We here at Larry Miller Auto have NEVER sold our customer lists to other companies!" ...but apparently they have no qualms about BUYING lists from other companies, since we get their advertisements.

One guy from an ad company asked me, a little patronizingly, if I was "a tree lover or something." Because there's no other reason I might not like having my mailbox stuffed full of advertisements every day. (Ironically, I had worn a tee-shirt the previous day that said, "Save a tree, ask me!")

The worst offender, The Daily Herald, was surprisingly easy. It took talking to three people, but the third person just said, "Yeah, sure, we'll take you off the list." We'll see if they do it...