CC APPLICATION FORMS
I would estimate I have three or four credit card application appeals delivered to my mailbox at curbside each week. Since we live in a development area which has streets but no curbs, that’s quite an
accomplishment in itself, but I wonder how the stability of those people in banks, and others, who expend so much money in the distribution of their sometimes gaudy printed forms. I keep thinking there must be a
hugh-mongous profit involved in handling credit card accounts just to pay for keeping the junk mail channel so jammed all the time.
It is not unusual to get four or five such appeals in unmatched sets in one mail delivery and from all over the country ... not just locally originated. They don’t know me from - well, they might actually mail to Adam
and, what was his wife’s name ---Eve. That’s right! They’ve gone back a long way to sign people up. I usually open them and why I do so Will be revealed before we finish.
I have never replied to one of them. I have heard of some nasty individuals who know how to “get even with” these senders of unsolicited
mails, too. While I have been tempted to follow their advice, I have not fallen that low yet. They mail the postage permit return envelopes back empty or with the literature enclosed. If you have every worked with such postage-paid
mailings you know you pay a pretty steep and , no doubt rising price for each return, and “empties” coming back in any amount can ruin the budget.
I have never had the nerve to do such a thing, but I have long felt I could cause a commotion in the offices by filling out the portion for the form which, commonly, asks for my annual anticipated income. I can
honestly and truthfully check the box which reads “less than $11,000.” I can be fairly sure I will be dropped form their mailing lists in the future by doing so. After all, they have been offering me credit as high as Mt. Everest is tall! My
mole hill income would caused consternation in the mailroom.
Some of the credit card application forms try to make us think they are the greatest thing since Santa Claus and without all that clatter of reindeer hooves on your roof and the chatter of elves unloading gifts for
you. (Anyone who thinks S. Claus still does the physical part of his job has not kept in touch with Claus’ contract clauses at all.
Among the application forms senders, I dislike most those cheapskates who print on both sides of the good quality paper most of them use. That inconsiderate act on their part means I cannot re-cycle their
sheets as scratch paper, doodle pads and for other uses around my cluttered desk. One can build a ream of such one-sided, re-useable paper quickly on credit card application forms alone.
There are numerous types with Visa and Master Card tie-ins and before long every known business will have their own version.
I’m waiting for one which will combine all of them into one and select the one which gives you the best deal on whatever you buy. It will be called a “Card Card”.
I must be sure to get several of those.
A.L.M. September 1, 2002 [c 568wds]
