I get really pissed off when companies take your name in the normal course of business, and then send you “correspondence” after you asked them specifically not to. You can usually know that something is on its way when the discustomer service person gives you a blank look while clicking away at the register keyboard.
Today, I received the second bit of junk mail from Lens Crafters. Yes, thank you, my new glasses are fine, but as I don’t need another pair for TWO YEARS, leave off!!!
This Bike Nerd How To is End Junk Mail.
1. You must remain diligent.
2. You must make them think you’re really pissed off.
3. Being “pissed off” is never really enough. Plenty of people are upset about junk mail. You must also make them dread that you are INSANE and you have too much time on your hands.
4. Repeated statements, misspellings and odd markings heighten the effect of your rabbidity! It is graphic sputtering.
5. Expressing your feelings with stick figures is very effective. Everyone likes stick figures! and they can do things that polite people never would.
6. The use of standard icons is particularly helpful: Contast hearts, flowers and butterflys with frowning faces, rain clouds, and lightening bolts.
5. Do not threaten anyone personally, or make belligerent drawings featuring well-known people or places. That could land you in jail. Just keep it to stick figures.
If you send back everything you receive in this manner, I guarantee you will end your junk mail woes. I have used this technique to liberate a shopaholic with a Mercer Island zip code from a mountain of catalogs. I have brought this technique to bear in the highly desirable 02446 zip where some people never say “no” to any thing and are on every mailing list.
It is proven and viable.
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7 Comments
I thought the “send the junk mail back with a brick attached” was good, but that takes that idea and pounds it into the ground then buries it under a large pile of recycled paper.
Bravo! (and I want to see more examples!)
And I want to see what you do with the reply card for that bad restaurant at the good hotel in VT. I’m sending that to you….
Yes, your ideas are very well and good for 99.5% of junk mail. But what do you when you’ve gotten yourself on some crazy list, like adult baby or skinhead mailorder? Stick figures and meandering rants might seem too normal.
Mysteriously, anonymous, I did get on a list for adult babies! In that remote instance, I would change tact and write to said provider of adult baby material, in a respectful and faux legal voice, asking them to cease and desist.
A sentatorial tone, for example, would do nicely (knowing full well that something Congressional tone might be seen as a bit too come-hither). That ought to work just fine for you.
Thanks for asking, anonymous!
I subscribed to a couple liberal magazines and don’t you know I end up with junk mail from every liberal politically organized group out there. ACLU, HRC, PETA and a few I’ve never heard of. I thought they would be some environmentalists and want to save paper! They send stickers, address labels, and all sorts of junk. I think it’s comical because I dream of my Republican inlaws picking up my mail for me someday and being horrified by what they see. ha!
TOO funny — loved the photos.
From the “shopaholic” (which, for the record, is dramatically overstated) on Mercer Island, yes you truly performed an exorcism on my mailbox a decade ago.
I went from 10 – 40 catalogues a week to almost zero. You created postcards on toxic neon orange cardstock and laboriously cut out the address block from each catalogue and glued it on the postcard as the return address. I simply invested the cost of postage. It worked miracles.
The other tip I’d pass along to anyone concerned with unsolicited junk mail is to NOT subscribe to magazines. My volume of junk mail soared with each subscription.
Liis