tips to stop junk mail and solicitors calling

jer1198

New member
If any of you are absolutely SICK of junk mail and telemarketers... you will LOVE this. Enjoy!

8-)

Andy Rooney's tips for telemarketers

Three Little Words That Work !!

(1) The three little words are: "Hold On, Please..." Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt. Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task. These three little words will help eliminate
telephone soliciting.

(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end? This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone. This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real" sales person to call back and get someone at home. What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your name in their system any longer !

(3) Junk Mail Help: When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these "ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away. When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope. Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 39 cents postage "IF" and when they receive them back. It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50 cents before! the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes. One of Andy Rooney's (60 minutes) ideas. Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back! If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them 39 cents. The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but folks, we need to OVERWHELM them. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it...Twice! Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that
e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea ! If enough people follow these tips, it will work----I have been doing this for years, and I get very little junk mail anymore.

THIS JUST MIGHT BE ONE E-MAIL THAT YOU WILL WANT TO FORWARD TO YOUR
FRIENDS
 
Hehe.. I already do #3, and have been doing it for a few years. Takes me a few more minutes to remove my name from it all, but theres a certain little bit of happiness I get frrom overstuffing one of their prepaid return envelopes and sending it back.

Another idea, to augment #1, is to ask them for their phone number so you can call them back. When they start to give the company number, say "NO, I want your HOME number, so I can call you back during YOUR dinner." You'd be amazed how stupified the caller suddenly gets..
 
Take those mailer coupons for local stores and use them to stuff return envelopes. They fit the legal size envelopes perfectly and you can stuff a lot of them in to drive up their return postage rates.

Another thing to do is this: If you have access to a phone that won't come up on caller ID, call all of the 800 numbers they give you. You don't have to say anything, just let the call connect. Same premise as above, in that they have to pay for all of the calls they receive.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7042893#post7042893 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Nagel


Another idea, to augment #1, is to ask them for their phone number so you can call them back. When they start to give the company number, say "NO, I want your HOME number, so I can call you back during YOUR dinner." You'd be amazed how stupified the caller suddenly gets..

Just saw this one on Seinfeld!!

Check out Jim Fourentine's CD's. They are called terrorizing Telemarketers.
 
I heard somewhere once that if you tape the return postage envelope to say a box with an old tire in it or something that they get charged for that shipping. I think USPS caught on and stopped it though.
 
thats gotta be a big box.

saturday, we sent the shopright add to ameriquest home mortgage, their is a sale on ketchup.

today we got a pre approved american express (yeah, right, thats dangerous), i think they will get the best buy flyer from saturdays paper, ya never know who needs a new TV.
 
I have to start looking for heavy junk I got lying around. what an interesting way to get rid of an old tire.
 
well i hate to break everybodies bubble but guess who pays the bill for all that returned mail. The consumer, and in case you haven't figured it out thats me and you. The companies don't cut into profits for all that they just pass it on to the next guy.
 
Maybe so, but they are not stupid either. Like any business they try to determine the effectiveness of their advertising avenues and you can bet the ones that stay in business are the ones that pay attention to how much they are spending or these mailings and how much they get out of it. If enough of us do this, they will change their practices because if as you say they drive their prices up to compensate, eventually they will be too high for anyone to buy their stuff.

I am gonna send these back full of junk, bubble not broken.

Kevin
 

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