I'm sorry, but this is stupid. Who has so little going on in their life that they need to care about a piece of junk mail from rite aid. It's not like it was a bill or an important document with a name mixup. If her family gets that bent out of shape over a piece of junk mail, no wonder her mother was in the hospital with heart issues. These people are stressing me out with their trite concerns.

@AngrySicilian: I've got to agree with you. My mom woulda been like "What the hell" and everyone woulda gotten a big laugh out of something like that.

I wonder if she asked her boyfriend? Maybe he signed up for a promotion and didnt want it sent to him. or maybe someone who knows them provided the false information.

Ignoring the first and expected blame the OP post, the letter the OP wrote was extremely well-done.

Instead of the typical outrage that "I'll never set foot in your store again", (then why help her), but makes her future shopping activities contingent on receiving a satisfactory reply.

That is a motivator for a company to take action!

@AngrySicilian: I couldn't agree more. This is a complete non-issue. What exactly is the point here? How in the world does a mistake in a piece of junk mail translate into some kind of a mistake on a prescription as you suggest there Profio? Consumerist has really been slacking lately with these lame stories.

This is just a marketing database thing. Probably from ChoicePoint. It's the same reason that I get junk mail addressed to both my parents at my address (where they have never lived), various combinations of my name and theirs, etc. They are just using software to try to guess where you live and who you are. This isn't even worth looking at, much less worrying or complaining over. Just throw it in the trash and move on.

I am trying to wrap my head around this but I keep stumbling over we both worked together at Rite-Aid, but never once marked myself as being "connected" to him, except by address... it seems that would be enough for a mailing list database to take some free license with its entries.

Rebecca reminds me of a friend of mine who once spent 20 minutes on the phone in order to correct a misspelling on her Newsweek subscription. Her name is Joanna, the magazine was addressed to Joanne.

It isn't worth worrying about, but it is worth several of you taking the time to make pointless comments?

As the OP described, her mother is ill and quite fragile. Her mother's weak heart starts racing and dies from the shock.

Perhaps the OP has a new boyfriend or is now married to someone else. Her new partner leaves her and suspects her of infidelity or lying about a previous marriage?

Quality of life is important and it is not your or my place to decide what issues are important in another person's life.

You feel not news? Not important? Then move on and save your breath. Your comments clearly mean this was important enough for y'all to take the time to write.

I always find it funny that people complain about the lack of privacy and how corporations know everything about people, yet the junk mail I get is so poorly targeted. I regularly get mail addressed to my parents and older brother, both of whom live several states away and have never lived at my address.

I used to get letters from Ed McMahon all the time. He said I won millions of dollars!! I was so excited and called everyone and told them all about it. Then, Ed never paid me and I fell into a deep depression... I was glad to hear that he's now in foreclosure.

I am trying to wrap my head around people who think it's a waste of time and non-issue then wasting their own time posting about what a non-issue it is. If you think it's not worth thinking about, MOVE ON instead of whining that the only problems worth discussing are those that would affect you, personally.

If this were from a home and garden store, I wouldn't think much of it either, but it's a pharmacy. When a pharmacy starts spamming personal information, especially when they screw it up, THAT raises an eyebrow. Your prescriptions are supposed to be private, not something pharmacies mine for money. Yes, some of them do anyway. That's the problem.

The real answer... quit living in sin.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.... Let's have some real consumer issues please.

@SkokieGuy: Interesting extrapolation, but wrong. I read consumerist for the interesting articles, and when I see the quality of the content of said articles declining, I comment. This article is dumb and pointless. I am not saying that I am unsympathetic regarding her moms condition. This is just simply a mistake by Rite Aid's marketing department, nothing more. This was not malicious in any way on the part of Rite Aid, and to get bent out of shape about it is ludicrous.

It...is...a...dumb...article.

That's all.

@AngrySicilian:
@BoomerFive:

she should do a credit check someone may be using the name to steal her identity. someone she knows considering it started from a place her and her boyfriend worked.

As annoying as it may sound - this happened to me. Prior to being married I was getting mail with my first name and my future husband's last name. After we got married, I did not go the traditional route and change my last name but kept my maiden name.

Here is where the problems start. Parents (as well as some places of business), began using my first name and his last name without any notification to do so. So what ended up happening is not only did I get checks written to me in a psuedo married persons name (who doesn't exists) but also credit card offers, loan offers from local banks and junk mail.

Oh and one last thing - somehow the name has shown up on my credit report as an alias.... go figure THAT one out since I've never USED my first and what should be my married name together anywhere.

This is only the tip of the iceberg.

I used to work for a catalog database management company and even I get the screwed up junk mail. The one that stumped me the most was when my now-husband's ex wife received a piece of mail addressed to me under my maiden name at her house where I never lived. I called my old coworkers to find out how that could happen and none of them could figure it out.

The ex wife was pissed!

@mythago: What is with you people? How is her prescription info at all an issue here? Was it sent out for all the world to see? How the hell were they "spamming personal information"? Why do you want to make an issue out of something so stupid?

@TheBigLewinski: Exactly

"My mother had just gotten out of the hospital with congestive heart failure and a massive infection"
So? That one sentence debased your whole argument. You are clearly trying to create a deal out of nothing. It clearly happened because you have the same address. And on top of that maybe you or your boyfriend caused the mix up in something one of you filled out. But it seems like you only have a problem because your mom could drop dead at any moment. That is not a reason to be mad at a company sending a screwed up piece of mail. Your Mom is clearly the problem for freaking out over a piece of mail.

@mythago: It's worth commenting on, because a lot of people don't understand why this happens. It's usually because a lot of companies outsource marketing to these external data aggregation companies like ChoicePoint. That's worth knowing. But the fact that you got incorrectly addressed junk mail does not mean anything, at all. The database just linked the two of them together because they lived at the same address.

@failurate: You aren't serious, are you?

Perhaps we should make a master list of everyone who is physically or emotionally fragile. Then we should submit that list to The Great Comnputer In Teh Sky so that It can make sure nothing is ever done, said, or sent in the mail that might possibly offend the people on the list.

Rebecca, I am proud to award you the, Most useless consumer complaint today award. Not only have you whined and cried about how junk mail is addressed, you have wasted the time of the fine readers of consumerist.

I think this is a big waste of time. Having said that, I fully appreciate the irony of my posting to indicate that, and as such, have little interest in being lectured on the illogical nature of said post.

I agree it's a little odd this happened, but regardless of how their junk mail gets addressed, I think it bears little reflection on their ability to fill a prescription, right? I was kinda with the OP as long as her letter was "This is just odd and I'd like it fixed" but she lost me when she went over the top toward the end.

It's just silly.

This happened because many databases assign a last name to an address based upon the first customer at that address, and unless it's manually overridden everyone at the same address automatically gets that last name. It usually happens with marketing because it would be impossible to check every name and address before it goes out.

When I worked for a large insurance company each household had a master record, and there were fields for legal name and preferred name. Sometimes people would use the preferred name field to put notes if there was no room anywhere else.

We got more than one phone call from people upset because they got something addressed to "Deceased Smith".

Whoops.

It's probably best for everyone to just chuckle and toss the erroneous mail. It's going to happen. No one means any harm.

All I can say is that I glad this person has such a nice life that this is the most of her worries. She should count her blessings.

On another note, I wouldn't likely go to Rite-Aid after finding how confused they can become of something so simple as a first and last name. I mean C'mon, I can't even pronounce most drug's names.

Most people don't know anything about Choicepoint etc. Could you imagine what would happen if the average wife in America started seeing junk mail with her husband's name and another woman? There would always be a glimmer of doubt.

Actually knowing about how marketing databases work could further fuel some thought in her mind. Somewhere her husband could have reserve a hotel room somewhere with this other woman. Plane tickets, theme park vacations, etc. Many companies sell their sales records.

I get mail and collection phone calls for someone else who just has the same last name and a similar first name as my wife (even though it's a man's name). They even followed us when we moved. I can't get them to really believe this is true and their collection reps don't know anything about how these stupid databases work.

All this hassle because of a "best guest" database call.

slow news day.

@BeThisWay: That's fine if it was how it happened. Computer error, and all that. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be corrected.

But wouldn't you be pissed if somebody said you were married to somebody you're not? It's kind of a big deal.

If your mom could die from reading a mislabelled piece of junk mail....I hope she never gets that fake mail telling her that she may have just won a million dollars.

HAha That happened to my sister too. She had a boyfriend use my father's account to get a Sam's Club card and we'd get mail either for him or her with his last name all the time!

I get mail from a mechanic with my first name and my boyfriend's last name.

Oh wait, that's because I told them once years ago in an effort to consolidate our accounts and then totally forgot about it.

@trillium: This has happened to me, also. My first name, my husband's last name on my credit report. I have not changed my name, never applied for anything in that name.

I think this is a bigger issue that those of you who say "this isn't an issue." Are you male? is this a non-issue to you?

I would be interested in hearing what the OP finds out. She may have found the missing link between advertising offers and personal data companies. I use choicepoint for work fairly frequently, and I've never seen this issue pop up, but it might be another data company responsible for this.

And I hope her mother is doing better.

@Mr_D: No, because it was just a dumb computer program, not an actual person. It's not a big deal at all.

Wait wait wait.

1) If it only takes a single piece of junk mail misaddressed to make Rebecca's mom think she got married secretly, there are other issues in this family.

2) Rebecca is complaining to Rite-Aid about junk mail that is misaddressed? There are other issues in this family.

@johnva, I'm not talking about what happens at the mailing-list level; obviously it's a stupid computer merge error. I'm more interested in how their names got into the database in the first place. Pharmacies here in California are pushing to be able to sell confidential patient information. I don't know what the laws are where Rebecca lives, but in her situation, I'd be very curious as to whether Rite-Aid got that information from her employment or her prescriptions, and where else that information is going.

But y'all go ahead and post endlessly about what a waste of time it is to read this post. Then you should return that irony detector you bought from Best Buy, since it's obviously not working.

Of course, the problem with using the address to explain how this happened is the mailing was sent to a different address. If the system used the shared address of OP and her boyfriend to link them, why did it then send the mailing to OP's mother, in a different state?

Our last names are like Smith and Jones, we often get junk mail for a Smith Jones, a Jones Smith, a J. Ones Smith, and Mr. or Mrs. Jones-Smith or Smithjones.

I guess we should get upset that out names have been hyphenated when we have never done so. I guess it's kind of a big deal?

@mythago: " I'm more interested in how their names got into the database in the first place."

Perhaps because they BOTH worked there.

do you two live together? If so, that's probably way.

Rite-Aid gets their info from database info that's sold, someone has their lines crossed.

I have a different perspective - most people who've gone through congestive heart failure afterwards end up with what's termed "cardiac irritability" (My mother being extremely prone to this). In such a state, it might be best (and I'm NOT blaming the OP here, just offering a suggestion) NOT to have her mother open the mail. It's a rule we had to institute in my own home, as mom would get very upset at the drop of a hat for awhile after a CHF episode.

@johnva: So if I start advertising myself in mailers as your husband, you would be OK with that?

@mythago: They may not have gotten it from either of those sources, like I alluded to earlier. They may have just purchased a mailing list from some third-party company. The third-party people could have gotten this information almost anywhere.

@B: Again, ChoicePoint or some other data broker knows that they are related. I don't know why their database is so full of errors, but I get junk mail for my parents all the time and vice versa.

@Mr_D: I don't believe any reasonable person would believe that the name on a piece of junk mail means anything at all, these days.

@testsicles: Because 20 years ago my (at the time) 6 year old sister and I shared an internet account (Prodigy FTW) I still get mail addressed to "MYNAME HERNAME LASTNAME", which has followed me across multiple addresses and even a psuedo name change "MYMIDDLENAME HERNAME LASTNAME".

I get that it bugged the OP. Go ahead and send a letter correcting, but dont waste an EECB. If people start dropping them on every minor inconvenience it will dilute the power.

And those people whining about personal data and scripts need to realize that the marketing department is probably a completely seperate element, and its not like rite aid makes their profits on the meds.

CLEARLY, this is what happened:

The boyfriend signed up for some junkmail combining his girlfriend's first name and his last name under her mother's address. He did this knowing that the mother was irrational and easily upset; he figured the excitement would take care of her now so that he didn't have to deal with her once they actually became married. Eliminate the mother-in-law before she eliminates you. Smart boyfriend.

Heyoooooooo!

@Mr_D - I agree, these errors should be corrected as they're found.

And no, I don't get upset about things like that, just like I don't get upset when I still get mail in my maiden name, or when my name is misspelled, or the wrong gender. I've gotten some pretty odd mail in my time, and perhaps I have too many really issues in my life to worry about how marketers address my mail.

I'm not belittling people who do. Their choice. Just not mine.

@LINIS: nah, if he wanted to do that, he would have signed up for a free sample of Huggies or Gerbers instead. That would have been a one way ticket to inheritance town!

@bobbleheadr:

"its not like rite aid makes their profits on the meds."

Yes, those $100 or $1000 prescriptions make them no money at all! They just have the pharmacy there out of the good of their hearts. In fact, I heard they lose all kinds of money giving away those non-money-making prescriptions just because they love humanity!