Russell Greenwood 09 Jan 06

Yes, you definately don’t want to leave the Cat in the Hat in there…

Rabbit 09 Jan 06

*stab stab* Die marketers, die!

Daniel Morrison 09 Jan 06

What gets me is how they include a fake credit card, thinking that is enough to seduce me.

Now, they are starting to send cardboard credit cards. I applaud the shift to a renewable material, but find it laughable that someone thinks this is good marketing.

I guess I’m not that easy.

RJB 09 Jan 06

It has come to the point where you can always rely on credit card apps to creativly deal your debt. You get your monthly balance sheet, you can barely pay the min. amount, along with a CC application that offers 0% interest for n Months on balance transfers. Hmm.

I know countless people who do this. Over and over. Shouldn’t the entire financial system crumble because of things like this? - Or - Is this why the country is in such debt? - Or - I have no concept of economics so I’ll keep my mouth shut.

Brandon 09 Jan 06

That’s freakin’ hilarious… they just keep getting smarter and smarter! Or maybe not, since I’d just put the whole damned envelope in my shredder. It cross-cut shreds up to 20 sheets, plastic and all!

Jeremy 09 Jan 06

I actually just got the same thing today in the mail. Thanks, you have saved me the energy of opening it before I shred it.

nb 09 Jan 06

While that is bad, it’s not quite as bad as a local car dealership using the Emergency Broadcast Signal to start their radio advertisements.

“This is a new car emergency. Due to weather in the north, hundreds of vehicles have been … “

They should be fined and closed for their stupidity.

wka 09 Jan 06

Side note: you can opt out of receiving credit card offers at optoutprescreen.com. I did this several months ago, and have seen fewer offers in my mail.

adam 09 Jan 06

Marketing 2.0!

joe vasquez 09 Jan 06

those crafty buggers…i’m in the wrong line of work if i could be getting paid for being an decietful asshole instead of it being a fringe benefit for my coworkers.

Darrell Jordan 09 Jan 06

The ones I hate are the ones with the hard plastic in the middle so you just can’t rip them up and toss them.
dj

Matt Todd 09 Jan 06

Two things… First, be careful: I’ve received real cards in the mail and they only needed to be activated. Crazy.

Second thing is that you need to realize how effective this is… See, they know you will usually just toss it away… But if they can get you to open it up and look inside, that’s a great victory for them!

M.T.

JBishop 09 Jan 06

You need to open the envelope first and remove the postage paid return envelope. Then shred the contents, insert into their P.P.R.E. and drop it off in the local mailbox…

While you’re at it toss in a couple of those inserts you get with your utility bills…

Kyle 09 Jan 06

I need a cross-cut shredder. I can imagine my standard spaghetti shreds are not as satisfying.

-K

Amine 09 Jan 06

A shredder !! that’s what I need.. spending money on firewalls and anti-spaywares and toss my bank statement in the trash can.
Talking about Marketing 2.0, what about joing the army thing..
the other day i received a letter that said a big “thank for applying” …. and then it said something about a strating date..
I called that number freaking out, ” I never applied for the army ” yelling on the phone, ” Yeah We know!! , that letter is just an invitation to some workshops near your area “….
that letter had my SSN … that’s crazy

Mike 10 Jan 06

Amine, hold the phone! Do you mean you received a letter from the army that printed your full SSN?!? How can this be legal?

Thank you to California that is forcing companies (but probably not govt agencies) away from using the SSN is a unique identifier.

jacob harvey 10 Jan 06

Apparently it’s so cheap to do they only need a 2% return to make money off of it. So yeah, shredders are fun.

But what gets me… How out of the 2 credit cards I do have, I get those stupid checks equivalent to cash advances. Naturally I destroy them, but now I can’t just ignore them and have to open them up because on all the envelopes they write things like above. “Important account information enclosed…” What a bunch of bull.

Dave M 10 Jan 06

It’s the fake checks that I hate the most. My wife gets one every other week for student loan consolidation - the envelope looks like it’s from the US Treasury, and the check is multi-colored to look like a tax refund!! Those idiots need a talking-to by the guvmint.

DaveMo 10 Jan 06

The ones I find utterly stupid are the bogus credit-type cards from mail-order services like BMG or Columbia House, etc that come with their junk mail offers. What good are those? I mean, what - do you show them to the letter carrier when he shows up with your package? They’re embossed and have a phony mag-stripe on the back, but you order from a paper form or online, so the card has no practical use!

What I think of when I throw this crap in the trash each time is how sad it is that this probably works great with a significant percentage of the population and how marketers think they’ve got their strategy dialed in.

Geoff B 10 Jan 06

Here’s a fun link on the same topic - a joelonsoftware blog post from 2001 titled “how many lies can you find in one direct mail piece”.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000019.html

heh.

Myron 10 Jan 06

1) Call up the phone number to open an account and ask that the remove you from their solicitation list. This will eventually work and the phone call probably costs them 5 or 10 bucks. They will tell you this may take 3 months to take effect. Thats ok, I’ll keep calling for three months. If you’re feeling chatty, ask if they can remove your address and not just specifically you (they won’t). Ask them to remove your spouse’s name, your dog’s name. Ask what bank is offering the credit card and ask to be put on their do not solicit list (they might), and so on.

2) Put everything without identifying information back in the postage paid envelope and mail it to them. This moves you into grumpy old nutcase territory, but it seems appropriate when the envelope has one of these obnoxious demands:
“please reply within 5 days”,
“you must reply immediately”, and my favorite
“the courtesy of a reply is requested”

Beau 10 Jan 06

Talk about corporate manipulation and marketing tricks. They shouldn’t be allowed to send a card or anything else that could increase the risk of identity theft either. It’s difficult to get off their damn mailing lists too. How about a Google link bomb for the worst corporate offenders? Many sites could generate a corporation link that connects to a “worst corporate junk mail offender” page? That page should eventually get a high ranking in google searches for that particular corporation.

Adam 11 Jan 06

Hey that looks familiar. Yup, I actually opened it thinking I’d have to be careful because there could be a real card and someone’d only have to activate it….

Tino Maas 12 Jan 06

Yeah, because you so wouldn’t want to shred the American flag would you…

Brandon 17 Jan 06

I love edgy marketing, but I hate this over-the-line stuff.

Tell you what. Let’s all choose just one credit card company, publish their mailing address, and we all send them every ounce of our junk mail for the next 6 months. Then, let’s shift to the next credit card company. And so on. And so on.

STEVE 11 Apr 06

EVERYONE!!!….

Here is a great way to make the marketers pay!!

Simply take the return envelope that comes with the solicitation, stuff the junk mail (not any that has your name on it) into the envelope and mail it….you dont pay postage!!

This causes the credit card companies to not only pay for the mail that they sent you in the first place, but now they pay for the return postage and the time it takes for their employees to open it!!!

STEVE 11 Apr 06

EVERYONE!!!….

Here is a great way to make the marketers pay!!

Simply take the return envelope that comes with the solicitation, stuff the junk mail (not any that has your name on it) into the envelope and mail it….you dont pay postage!!

This causes the credit card companies to not only pay for the mail that they sent you in the first place, but now they pay for the return postage and the time it takes for their employees to open it!!!

STEVE 11 Apr 06

EVERYONE!!!….

Here is a great way to make the marketers pay!!

Simply take the return envelope that comes with the solicitation, stuff the junk mail (not any that has your name on it) into the envelope and mail it….you dont pay postage!!

This causes the credit card companies to not only pay for the mail that they sent you in the first place, but now they pay for the return postage and the time it takes for their employees to open it!!!

Jonny 19 Jun 06

I have a much better idea for stoping those @$#%$% companies:
Goto FTC web site:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/prescreen.htm
Then, read about this site: www.optoutprescreen.com
This site will allow you to register for not receiving anymore those trash.

Jonny 19 Jun 06

I have a much better idea for stoping those @$#%$% companies:
Goto FTC web site:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/prescreen.htm
Then, read about this site: www.optoutprescreen.com
This site will allow you to register for not receiving anymore those trash.

Jonny 19 Jun 06

I have a much better idea for stoping those @$#%$% companies:
Goto FTC web site:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/prescreen.htm
Then, read about this site: www.optoutprescreen.com
This site will allow you to register for not receiving anymore those trash.

Jonny 19 Jun 06

I have a much better idea for stoping those @$#%$% companies:
Goto FTC web site:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/prescreen.htm
Then, read about this site: www.optoutprescreen.com
This site will allow you to register for not receiving anymore those trash.

I like pie 08 Jul 06

guhhh???……pickel! ya’ll cool I think, I know how to make a cap gun shoot I will tell you how on this web site just go to the gestbook and say “how do you make a shooting cap gun?” and I will tell you how.. www.freewebs.com/markmenezes/

mmm.....pie 08 Jul 06

caca! caca! caca! caca!!!!! oh ya I got fake credit card numbers oh ya, so what I s this web site about?

dillon 08 Jul 06

dillon was here