Entry bubble Credit Card Offers

By: Colleen | May 07, 2008 | Category: Home and Family

Few things are consistent in life. The alarm clock doesn't always go off when it's set. The Patriots ruin a perfectcredit card season by choking in the Super Bowl. A bright and sunny Saturday can turn to thunderstorms in the blink of an eye.

As far as I can tell, I can guarantee only two things:

  • If I am wearing white to dinner, something with spaghetti sauce will be served.
  • At least three times a week I will find a credit card offer in my mailbox.

Wearing white will never stop me from eating spaghetti, but I can help eliminate the seemingly endless stream of credit card offers.

Receiving these offers makes you a target for identity theft. To prevent your information from falling into the wrong hands, you should "opt out" of pre-approved offers.

You can opt out for five years or permanently.

Eliminating these offers helps protect your identity and is also eco-friendly. You're saving paper and creating less waste. It is reported that my generation is in an endless cycle of post-graduation credit card debt—so the fewer offers you get, the less temptation you have to add another card to that bulging wallet.

| Comments [8] | envelope Email This Entry | Tags: card  colleen  credit  identity  mail  offers  theft 

 

Entry bubble Opt Out of Catalog Mailing Lists

By: Joanne | May 06, 2008 | Category: Home and Family

big stack of catalogsDo you get too many catalogs in the mail? There was a time, back in the dark ages before the internet, that I was a committed catalog shopper. But those days are over, baby—I’m an online shopper now, and the catalogs are nothing but kindling to get the fire started. If I’m not ordering from the catalogs, why do they continue to arrive every day!?! It’s like they’re hunting you down! Recently I ordered some shoes from an online retailer and a few weeks later a catalog filled with ugly, horrible shoes arrived in the mail. Look out, someone’s gotten wise to the fact that my family wears shoes!

When you think about it, unwanted catalogs are a terrible waste of resources. There’s the paper and the ink and distribution and the processing all for something that I’m going to throw directly into the recycle bin. I’ve finally decided to do something about this shameful waste in my life.

If you think you have no control over these mailings, you’re wrong. You can register your mail preferences with the Direct Marketing Association to be removed from (or added to) the mailing lists of your choice. Or call the number printed on the catalog and ask them to remove you from their list. I’ve been doing this a lot lately. As soon as the catalog comes in the mail, I just pick up the phone—it doesn’t take long, and I’ve never had one hassle me about it. They tell me that it takes a number of weeks until you’re really out of the catalog mailing cycle, but that’s ok—by summer I’ll be catalog free!

If you’re interested, there are ways to opt out of unwanted credit card offers, unsolicited email, and cell phone spam, too.

| Comments [2] | envelope Email This Entry | Tags: catalog  joanne  junk  mail  marketing  opt  out