About those credit card offers..

[KarenInMA]

I keep spreading this message, hoping people will start to do this:

I get an average of 3-5 credit card offers a week, unsolicited, in the mail. Most are from Capital One. I don't want this junk, I didn't ask for it, and I won't take advantage of it.. ever.

So...

Included is typically an envelope, postage to be paid by addressee (the cc company). I take all the junk, rip of my (generally misspelled) name shred it to pieces and stuff it into the return envelope. I also include ripped up circulars, take out menus and other junk that comes my way.

It's like recycling, and it costs the CC companies time and money. I get rid of all my junk mail, and I get the evil little sense of satisfaction you get from doing something slightly wrong to an entity that is totally wrong.

I encourage you all to do this!! Throw in little rocks; make it as heavy as possible. If enough people do this, maybe they'll stop sending the crap out.

[osaMABUSh]

1. super idea!

[ironman202]

2. i used to routinely

wrap those business reply cards from the national right to life committee around a brick and drop them in the mail

[flamin lib]

3. Cross posting another thread.

It gets worse. 0% on balance transfers for one year go to 10+% and if there is a late payment the rate goes to 29%.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4433677&mesg_id=4433677

[Sivafae]

4. that is an awesome Idea. All I can see when I get those are dead trees.

[KCDoug]

5. been doing that

'cept I send back my old phone books...THAT's gotta cost em!!!

[Catherine Vincent]

6. What I do is print out anti Bush pics or literature and insert them

in the pre-paid envelopes then mail it back to the cc companies.:-)

[CrispyQ]

7. Recently I've noticed a warning on the back of the envelope

to the effect that if used outside of the intent the envelope was sent for you can be fined or some such BS. Then they print a customer tracking number. What I discovered, though, by receiving several of these offers, all the customer tracking numbers are the same!

Like the CC companies would go to any additional expense!

[KarenInMA]

9. I looked into that,

There is NO law against sending back junk to them. I'm not saying there won't be, but that's just conjecture.

[tanyev]

8. Print out educational material from DU and

send it back to them. Maybe one person will be enlightened.

[Mairead]

10. I used to do that, too!

The problem with that revenge is that, like e-spam, sneaker spam mostly burdens the network, i.e. the postal system. The spammers don't really care. They get such a low rate--involuntarily subsidised by us!--that they'll just keep right on sending.

A better way might be to fill up USPS Form 1500 "Application for Listing and/or Prohibitory Order" (download the pdf at usps.com) declaring the mailing to be obscene. The nice part is that the law (39 USC 3008) doesn't allow anyone to second-guess our judgement as to what's obscene: The Supreme Court said you can declare a “dry goods catalog” to be offensive and prohibit its delivery to your home. Rowan v. United States Post Office Department, 397 U.S. 728 (1970). The post office must accept whatever you classify as offensive, even if they don’t believe it is sexually oriented. (http://attorneygeneral.utah.gov/pornography/unsolicmail.htm)