opinion time...

came home from work today and grabbed the mail. bank statement (groan), credit card statement (double groan), letter from unknown origin (what is this??)...

turns out "letter" was a chain letter...one of those "get rich quick" schemes that always leaves you wondering if you did the right thing by shredding it...

this one indicated that you needed to purchase a mailing list of 200 names from one of 3 companies...obviously that is where margaret (the woman whose name was last on my list) got my name from. now i'm sure maggie is a nice woman that has no idea what kind of fury she put me in by sending me this letter. i'm sure she has nothing better to do than to address and lick 200 envelopes in the hopes that random strangers will send her money. of course, she did it...so someone else in this world would surely be dumb enough to do it back to her.

i sat fuming over the sheer idiocy of the whole thing when i realized that i'm getting upset at the wrong person. the people i should be venting frustration on are those that organize such national mailing lists in the first place and sell them to any joe schmoe who gives them a credit card number.

the chain letter indicated 3 such national companies...so i began to call them.

first on my list was "data mine". i got some random woman working the night shift and told her to get my name off her database. she said, "no problem, i can do that for you". after i had given her my information, i asked for some sort of confirmation that my name was indeed removed. she said, "oh, i'll have to give this to the day manager and they will take care of it". now am i just missing something or did she say that she could take care of my problem personally?? perhaps i'm just dumb...

second on my list was a company that has no possible way to speak to a human. everything was automated...so frustrating....i'll be checking with the BBB on them. (i forget the company name...but i dialed the number so much i have it memorized: 1-800-676-8886).

third on the list was a long distance number...so i skipped that one given the fact that i'm too cheap to mail $1 to maggie...why should i have to pay for the phone call to have my name taken off a list that i didn't ask to be on in the first place??

ok...so opinion time...what do y'all think about these chain letters and mailing list companies?? is the "get rich quick" scheme working for anyone out there?? does anyone care that random people mail you crap?? i hope maggie is just a bit freaked that i have her name and address in my posession (just don't let her know i shredded the letter....). ;)