A little while ago, in a fit of new year uncluttering, I signed up via a facebook group to a campaign to stop junk mail. Their website is a treasure trove of advice on how to stop the deluge of unsolicited junk that arrives on a daily basis. I used their web widget to get rid of junk mail from a variety of sources, and it is certainly making a difference.
Then, yesterday, came this:
So, Mr Meikle with the showbiz signature, you think that, instead of simply crossing my address off the list of houses you are going to dump your useless directory on, I should deface my front door with a 6″ by 4″ sticker in your corporate colours to prevent your operative delivering something once a year? It seems their response to a request to stop sending me junk is… to send me some junk. Here’s the offending sticker:
I shall be contacting Mr Meikle, and will report back.
Update, 1st March. Reply from Thomson:
Thank you for your email. The stickers are offered as an option to make it easier for our distributors to identify a non-delivery household. Naturally, we respect your choice not use the sticker and will add your address to our list for non-delivery.
Thank you for your enquiry,
Yours sincerely,
Yo. Green
Hmmm – how will they know my address, since I’ve communicated by email? Not very convincing is it?
Top image: Fiasco
Thomson Loco by Dr Rob Spence is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
How marvellous. Mark your door and the Angel of Death will pass you by.
I love the way the sticker identifies it as 'my' Directory, implying that it is a possession of yours that for some insane reason you do not wish to have.
Yes, quite, Mr Roy. I'm tempted to the cynical view that they know people won't use the sticker, so they can continue delivering as per.
I suspect that unaddressed items delivered by carriers other than the Royal Mail are the most difficult to avoid. Countless fly-by-night operations will pay people peanuts to shove unwanted things through doors. As for Thomsons, I would happily leave it to rot on the doorstep for a year, to signal my level of interest in receiving *their* publication, but to do so would be uncivil in other ways.
Yes. I recently took receipt of a parcel delivered by one of these "agents". He handed over the goods, and then treated me to a bizarre five minute rant about being followed by a police car as he drove around delivering things. "The only good copper's a dead copper, know what I mean?" was the clinching piece of oratory. I declined to point out that I am the son of a policeman.