Have you ever cut ties with a friend or loved one, thinking you’d never want to see them again? Have you later had second thoughts about taking the axe (metaphorically) to that relationship and wished you could rebuild what you once had? When it comes to banks, many of them just assume that people who opted out of junk mail are just sitting at home regretting that they ever stopped asking for their mailboxes to once again be filled with credit card, mortgage, and savings account solicitations. [More]
junk mail
Advance Fee Fraudsters Offended When I Use Junk Mail Nuclear Option
By 7.15.14
For some years now, we’ve suggested a nuclear option when a company simply will not sending you unwanted mail. It’s called a prohibitory order, and officially intended for when someone sends you smutty material that you didn’t ask for. Junk mail is pretty offensive, though, right? Yet one company was offended when a reader used this option to end a torrent of junk mail. [More]
Bank Of America Addresses Junk Mail To “Lisa Is A Slut”
By 2.7.14
Only a couple weeks after OfficeMax sent out some junk mail addressed to “Daughter Killed in Car Crash,” a California woman says a mailing from Bank of America showed up at her mother’s home with her name printed as “Lisa Is A Slut” McIntire. [More]
Comcast Blasts My Apartment Building With Junk Mail, Hopes For The Best
By 10.8.13
How much junk mail from one company is too much? There is no universal number, but the limit is definitely smaller than this one-day crop of Comcast mailers at one six-household apartment building. Look, Comcast, maybe the residents of this building just aren’t into you. [More]
Bank Of America Makes You Opt Out Of Junk Mail Every 5 Years, Even If You Don’t Have An Account
By 7.1.13 — Updated: 7.22.14
When you opt out of receiving junk mail from a company, you might think that this is the last time your mailbox will be filled with that particular business’s unsolicited offers. But no, as some companies put time limits on how long you can stop them from wasting time, paper, and money to send you things that go straight into the shredder. [More]
Here Is Every Piece Of Junk Mail AT&T U-Verse Sent Me In 2012
By 2.6.13
It takes a while, but eventually the universe catches up with you and punishes you for your misdeeds. Maybe. In a previous job, Kevin designed direct mail for AT&T. Now he just gets an awful lot of it. [More]
The Internet Age Has Only Made Junk Mail Smarter And More Efficient
By 1.28.13
The Internet — and all the publicly available data it makes accessible to retailers — would seem to provide an end to old-fashioned junk mail. Businesses can market directly to consumers based on decisions they made moments earlier, rather than wasting money printing and sending mail. But real junk mail is trying to evolve. [More]
Gmail Decides That Gmail Messages Are Spam
By 1.15.13
Checking his spam folder, Richard was a little surprised at the reason that this mail service, Gmail, gave for tossing one message into the junk pile. How did they determine that he probably didn’t want this message? Well, because the return address was Gmail.com, and “[they’ve] found that lots of messages from gmail.com are spam.” [More]
Bleak True Confessions From The Junk Mail Factory
By 12.13.12
Reader S. works in a junk mail factory, making sure that solicitations are perfectly printed so that you can ignore them. Yesterday, after reading our post about one reader’s battle to get off AT&T’s U-Verse mailing list, S. decided to write up an explanation of why it takes so freaking long to get your name off a junk mailing list. Don’t hate the mailers, or their innocent minimum-wage employees like S: hate the system. [More]
Why Can’t AT&T Leave Me And My Mailbox Alone?
By 12.12.12
Tonya has had it. She makes a habit of contacting companies that send her junk mail and asking them to stop, because she’d rather not have anyone kill trees to tell her about products she didn’t want in the first place. Most companies have been very good about this, but there’s one notable exception. She’s been fighting with AT&T to be removed from the U-Verse mailing list for a year and a half now. They won’t leave her alone. She wrote to the CEO, who passed her on to her very own executive customer service representative. This person hasn’t been able to stop the mail, either. [More]
I Like Kohl's, But I Hate Torrents Of Junk Mail
By 8.15.12
D. likes Kohl’s, but hates junk mail. Kohl’s has taken to sending her cascades of junk mail. Coupons are fine and all, but print coupons once a week or more often? No, thanks, says D. [More]
Austin Realizes Not Everyone Loves Junk Mail, Gives People Way To Opt Out
By 4.20.12
Contrary to the opinion of Nevada Senator Harry Reid, not everyone view junk mail as an indispensable conduit between elderly Americans and the outside world. In fact, most of us would rather do without it. That’s why officials in Austin took time off from rehearsing with their ska/bluegrass fusion trios to become the latest city to give residents a way to opt out of receiving unwanted mail. [More]
Senator Bums Everyone Out, Says "Elderly People Love Junk Mail"
By 4.20.12
There are few images more heartbreakingly depressing than an elderly person who eagerly awaits the daily delivery of mail — even junk mail — just so they’ll have something to look at that afternoon. But according to Nevada Senator Harry Reid, this is precisely why everything must be done to save the U.S. Postal Service. [More]
The One Junk Mailer That Won't Remove Me From Their List
By 3.29.12
Christopher has a mission. That mission is to eliminate junk mail from his life. Maybe to save his time and sanity, maybe to save the planet, maybe both. Most companies he’s called have been happy to oblige: they save money and earn goodwill by leaving him alone, after all. But one junk mail purveyor won’t stop. That company is Mailsouth. [More]
![Thank You For [Not] Being A Chase Customer, Here Is Your Junk Mail](../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/chasethumb.jpg?w=159&h=191&crop=1)
Thank You For [Not] Being A Chase Customer, Here Is Your Junk Mail
By 11.9.11
Jonathan received a letter from Chase thanking him for being a customers, and asking him to send it back in order to opt out of receiving promotional mailings. Which is interesting, because Jonathan not only isn’t a Chase customer, he doesn’t live at that particular address full-time or normally receive mail there. Concerned about identity theft, he learned that he wasn’t the only non-customer being thanked for patronizing Chase. But they won’t let him get off their mailing list, either. [More]
Proponent Of Costing Banks More Money By Mailing Back Weighted Business Reply Envelopes Defends His Cause
By 11.4.11
Earlier this week I wrote about a viral video that promised you could “Keep Wall Street Occupied” by sending back credit card business reply envelopes stuffed with anti-corporate messages and wooden shims. The video said this would increase mailing costs for the banks and force them to engage in a dialogue with their customers. Responding to my review where I called this idea “terrible,” the video’s maker sent me a note defending his campaign. [More]
Sending Back Protest Messages In Pre-Paid Credit Card Envelopes Isn't Going To Occupy Wall Street One Bit
By 11.2.11
A YouTube video has racked up over 300,000 hits promoting the idea that you can really mess with the banks by sending back activist messages in those pre-paid response envelopes that come with the credit card junk mail. The theory is that if enough people do it, it will force people in the bank mailrooms to have a meeting about all these Occupy Wall Street slogans showing up in their mail, and making banks engage in a dialogue with their customers, revolutionizing how they operate to a way that’s more responsive to the common good. This is a terrible idea and a waste of time. [More]
Chase Sends Letter To Non-Customers To Tell Them They Have To Opt Out Of Receiving More Unwanted Mail
By 11.1.11
It’s one thing to receive unwanted mail from a bank you don’t patronize. It’s another to receive a letter from that bank telling you that if you don’t reply to the letter, you’re opening the floodgates to even more unsolicited shredder-fodder. [More]
