A little while back, I hit a nerve with some of you who, like me, had been chased to the ends of their patience by Chase Bank. Many of you commented at that time with your own stories of woe and your ideas on how to establish a future free from mindless, incessant solicitation.
Well, I have a piece of news for all of you, and for anybody similarly plagued by a swarm of snail mail from JP Morgan Chase offering you 0% financing and free credit cards until the day you croak and all that nonsense, on and on and on. Last night I dropped by my old apartment — the one that was on the Chase radar screen — and collected a stack of mail that the U.S. Postal Service keeps delivering to that mailbox in spite of my entreaties not to do so. But I digress.
In the mailbox was the following letter from the people at Chase:
Dear Mr. Bing,
As your credit card company, we value your business and want you to be completely satisfied with your credit card account. We are responding to your recent request to remove your name from certain types of solicitations and/or information sharing.
We are pleased to confirm that we have taken actions to remove your name from the solicitation and/or information-sharing type you requested. Please understand, however, that if offers were prepared for you before we fulfilled your request, you may still receive those offers until our actions take effect. After that time, however, you should receive offers related to those types of solicitations and/or information sharing. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.
If you requested that we exclude you from mailings, your request will be honored until it automatically expires five years from the date of your request. If you move or otherwise change your mailing address, you will need to update your request to include your new address information.
If you requested that we exclude you from telephone solicitations, your request will be honored for the telephone number you provided. If that number changes, you will need to update your request to include your new telephone number.
If, in the future, you would like to change your choice, please call us for reinstatement details. If you have any questions, please call us at the toll-free number noted above. For your convenience, we are here 24 hours a day to assist you.
Sincerely,
Cardmember Services
I like that after five years they will assume that my distaste for their onslaught will abate, presumably with greater maturity, and they may begin again. That’s a nice touch.
Oh, by the way: Along with this letter in my mailbox were six catalogs from Frontgate, a confusing array of ads, entreaties and threatening notices from Chrysler about a leased car I gave back a few months ago, and six letters offering me a superb deal on a new credit card from Chase. Uh-huh.
I just had what I believe to be a very satisfactory discussion with a nice woman who has not yet gone postal at the Postal Service. I truly believe that in the near future the Government will begin forwarding this valuable mail to me at my new address.
I think I know what I will find therein when it finally does come through, and you know what? I can hardly wait.
