Some tips on junk mail, telemarketing calls etc

Unfortunately, this requires effort on your part. It's simply easier to throw away the mail, and hang up. Even though it costs them nothing, it merely shifts the cost to your time, and I think my time is more valuable and better spent....

I wonder if there's any empirical evidence this tactic actually REDUCES the total amount of junk mail?

 

Oooh, I like the junk mail idea! I never even thought about that....I get a ton of those stupid credit card solicitions every week and toss the ads/envelopes while keeping the application (or anything with my name/address on it) to shred later. I usually open my mail while watching a movie or television, so an additional couple of seconds to stuff the ads into the postage paid envelopes takes up minimal time for me. And I drop off mail every day so it's not like I'm putting in any extra effort to make an extra trip to the mailbox just for the purpose of mailing just those envelopes either. I love it!!

For the telemarketing thing, as soon as I hear 'quiet' on the other end of the phone I hang up. Or if a person is quick enough to come on the line before I have the chance to hang up, I do put the phone down without hanging up or put them on hold for awhile, before actually hanging up on them. Doesn't happen too often, as my work #'s, home #, and cell # are all listed on the 'do not call' registry.

 

You can cut the number of telemarketing calls you receive drastically by registering at the National Do Not Call Registry. You can cut down on them even further by asking the telemarketers who do call you to add you to their own "do not call" lists.

 

there are lots of ways to play with telemarketers. fortunately, we only have cell phones so we don't get those calls.

 

Who knows? But, it'll be FUN!

My dad takes great pleasure in messing with telemarketers. I once listened to him keep one selling satallite dishes on the line for a half an hour. He was very adament about being able to mount it on his (nonexistant) motorhome. (This was before they really did mount on motorhomes.) The marketer never did get the joke, just kept trying to sell. He'll also set the phone on speaker-phone and set it on the couch. They will keep asking "Are you there?" for sseverl minutes.

 

This would make it tempting to attach the return envelope to a brick!

 

I shred just about any junk mail that has my name on it. In order to make it even more difficult for dumpster divers, I also shred some useless junk mail. Most dumpster divers are too lazy to have real jobs so they won't bother trying to deal with a trashbag full of shredded paper. I even mix it up to make sure that the pieces are so jumbled that they'll never put them together and I also toss wet garbage in with it to make it really gooey. I like the idea of sending the credit card companies other junk mail though :lol: I'm going to use that one for sure. You can also take all of those subscription cards that magazines scatter throughout the magazine and mail them.

As for telemarketers, I look at the caller ID and if it's one of those 800 numbers, I ignore it. Sometimes when I'm irritated with them, I'll answer the phone but don't say anything. Then, when the telemarketer's machine forwards the call to a live salesperson, I just hold the phone and listen to their fruitless "hello? Hello? HellO? HELLO?" Then I hang up when I get bored. You can also answer with a phony name or some business name to confuse them. When they say something like "Isn't this Jack Dodge?" I just say "no, I just got this number" or "naw, he died last year" When my father used to answer the phone and the telemarketer asked for my mother, he'd say "She left me". That stopped the calls somehow, and that was before the do-not-call list was even an idea.

 

Do you have a cross-cut shredder? That's what we use, and it shreds the pages into mere crumbles of paper on which words and numbers are completely undiscernable (sp?). It's somewhat messy in that 'paper dust' can scatter when removing the plastic holding container. But I love it and use it for old bank statements, credit card bills/solitications, and anything with my name/address/personal information on it that I no longer need/want. Works much better than the shredders that just slice the pages into many long thin strips.

 

That reminds me of what my boss suggested: You can try to sell them something. "Boy, that sounds great, how would you like to buy some girl scout cookies? My daughter could use your help." I haven't tried that one yet but it sounds like a lot of laughs.

Jennifer, it chops it up in to little rectangles. It'll take an 8 1/2 by 11 page and turn it in to, I don't know, a zillion little rectangles that all look pretty much alike.

 

I used to work for a printing company. Not my division, but a division of my company is responsible for shipping a very large percentage of the junk mail that you get. As a trainer for my division, I spoke a lot with the trainers from that division and picked up a lot of information.

You might wonder - as I did - how the companies can afford to send out so much junk. It's simple. Even factoring in set-up time, the cost of each letter/offer is roughly 18 cents including the bulk mailing rate. They know exactly - to the 0.001 pound - how much each letter weighs and how much it costs. They are printed in order: not alphabetical order, but in the order that the postal carrier walks their route (ZIPcode+4). In this way, they qualify for presorted mail discounts. The company I worked for has post offices in the factories and USPS trucks being filled and sent away on a regular basis. Many times, these trucks take their cargo straight to major airports where they are flown directly to Post Office Distribution Centers for delivery.

So anyway, at $0.18 per mail piece, they plan on a return rate of around 2% on a good turnout. That's it: 2%! For every one hundred, they expect two people to apply for the credit card. That means that they are "throwing away" $18 for every hundred pieces. But if just one of those two people make even one late payment, the company has recouped their "losses". The rest is profit.

I don't work for that company anymore. Maggie is right that the Prepaid return envelopes only cost them money when you send them back. I have no loyalties and wouldn't hesitate anymore to mail back an empty envelope. That will increase the cost of sending me a credit card applicaction from 18 cents to more like 55 cents. And that's a big deal to these people.

On a personal note, you need to know that there is writing all over that application. Even parts of the application that doesn't have your name on it has a code. Those codes indicate which "bulk mail list" your name came from as well as a few other things. I'm sure that any 'dumpster diver' wouldn't be able to decypher those codes, but all the same, shred those as well.

 

This whole entry was great but this last part is also disturbing....so many identifiers that we don't know about.

 

...yes, rather ominious indeed...

 

Thanks Maggie!!
I m so sick and tire of credit card applications from capital one and american express! I never thought of sending them back. I will now!

 

Yep. Send 'em back empty. Or include a random coupon from another unassociated mailer. I like it!

 

I had a Mynah bird named Hitchcock that would talk up a storm every time the phone rang. It was so bad I would have to leave the room to have a phone conversation. When telemarketers would call I would say, just a sec, and then leave the phone by the cage. Eventually they would get it and hang up. He also barked with the dogs and beeped with the microwave.

 

send the envelope back with actual spam inside of it

 

I've been sending back junk mail for a few years now. The best ones are the little booklets with 50 or so coupons we get. Many of these coupons are orders for not just one purchase, but for some type of subscription - that's only apparent if you read the fine print.

I love to tear out all the individual coupons, for three booklets (mine and the neighbors) and dump them in the mail. They get to pay 150 times 45 (euro) cents in postage, that's about 90 dollars