Mailing failings.

[kyrielle]

The AARP just boggles me. I have just called them to attempt to get their mailings to my Dad to stop. (They are one of several that have not stopped sending mail despite it coming back "deceased - return to sender". Some companies vanished after I started doing that but many others didn't. Apparently not all of them pay any attention to that because the AARP had no idea he was dead. Which is funny, since they chased him through a change-of-address to my house after he was deceased, and as I noted I sent back quite a few items.)

The reason they boggle me, however, is their phone tree. It starts out by saying "Welcome to AARP" - over chimed notes! Dad had tinnitus, and had trouble picking out voices over music; he'd have wondered what they were saying. (Forget that: I wondered what they were saying, the chimes were loud and obscured the words! I only got it straight because I had to listen to it twice.) The first time through the tree, it said it had encountered an error in transferring me to the representative, please call back. So I did, and the second time it worked. They have now officially marked him as dead and not to send any more mailings, however I've been advised it can take time and there may be more mailings before it finishes being processed. That normally would not boggle me - the train of junk mail, lo, it is huge. But in this case "a while" is "up to 14 weeks" although he did assure me that the mailings would probably stop sooner. (It kind of makes sense, since AARP sends out a number of mailings under the logo of sister companies that handle, f'rex, AARP auto insurance...but still. Fourteen weeks.)

The Home Decorator's Collection is another one. I've called them twice now. They say you may receive one more mailing after cancelling so we shall see if it takes this time. In that case I can't say "deceased" because it's all phone tree and you never speak to a person. I suppose that if you typo the member number from the catalog you would randomly cancel someone else's subscription? That would be silly.

Comments

[jenett]

The one that always used to perversely amuse me were people calling to try and sell my father life insurance. Six months + after he died.

I'd do one round of polite. "I'm sorry, we're not interested", and then, if they persisted, let them twist for a bit and embarass them horribly.

[kyrielle]

Oh dear. Yeah, that is funny - also disturbing, but funny.

Hopefully I've put a stop to the AARP mailings, at least. Three months from now, but....

[elfbabe.livejournal.com]

My grandfather died in January of 1995. We managed to stop most of his junk mail, but as he had been a wealthy man and a staunch Republican, the party seemed rather reluctant to accept his death. My parents, big leftists who considered Democrats to be the best they were likely to get, were irritated by the constant mailings that picked up speed after Dole gained the nomination. My mother faithfully wrote "DECEASED - REMOVE FROM LIST!" on every one in progressively larger and darker letters, but they kept coming. Finally, one arrived that asked on the outside of the envelope "Will you help me defeat Bill Clinton?" Mom irritatedly scrawled "NO! I'm DEAD!" in reply and tossed it back in the box.

That was the last piece of mail Grandpa ever got from the RNC.

[phoenixscribe.livejournal.com]

Your mom rocks!

[kyrielle]

Your mother rocks. Just saying. :)