Consumer Warfare
How to deal with unwelcome mail and telephone solitications

Time is money.

Telephone solicitations:

Sean: Hello?

Solicitor: Hi, this is the XYZ Company, and I'd like to tell you about a great new way we have to help save you money...

Sean: Excuse me. Is this a solicitation?

Solicitor: Well, yes; I'd like to tell you about...

Sean: Just a moment. I'll be happy to listen to your solicitation, but I do charge for my time. Advertising time on this line is $5 for the first minute and $2 for each additional minute. Let me get your billing address first, and then I'll be happy to listen.

Solicitor: (Pause, baffled) Let me get my supervisor.

Mail solicitations (using credit card offers as an example)

Dear Credit Card Vendor,

Thank you for the recent advertisement which you sent me offering me a credit card. Since I receive such a large number of these advertisements, I have decided to begin offering a paid service by critiquing the advertising content of these mailings.

If you wish to avail yourself of this service, simply send me copies of your future advertisements. Please understand that any future advertisements which you send me constitute a legally binding request for this paid consulting service. When I receive your advertisement, I will be happy to write a short critique of its advertising value, which I will send to you together with my bill for U.S. $100 per advertisement which I critique for you. I must receive payment in full within 30 days of the statement date; late payments are subject to a $25 fine per 30 days.

The advertisement which I recently received from you is the first one for which I have kept a record. As a courtesy, I will not consider this first mailing to be an actual request for my services.

Please keep this notice for your records.

With kindest regards,

There are some great things you can do to cut down on solicitations.  First get rid of your land line.  Land line numbers are accessible to almost everyone.  Have yourself added to the do not call list (https://www.donotcall.gov/register/reg.aspx).  Then there are some other fun things that you can do.  When I had a land line and I would get solicitation calls I would simply ask them to hold on and then walk away from the phone and go about my day.  I normally never received more than two calls from the same vendor.  When you receive credit card ads, remove any information which identifies you and then use the prepaid envelope to mail the contents from one credit offer to another (visa to mastercard, amex to discover, etc.)  Like Rico said if it cost them money they will go away.

What a great idea for a thread, guys! Creative ways to deal with you know who.

Quoting MarEll:

Quote:
I always used to do this, except I also put something heavy into the envelope so they were charged more for going over their weight limit.

That's where all the lead off the church roof went too!!!


Steve