Fond remembrance of boom times
- Posted by Jo Easton
- on January 28, 2009 3:51 PM
Think back to a couple of years ago, when you’d go to get your mail… (Insert nostalgic sound of chimes here.)
Did you ever open the mailbox, and credit card offers would literally fall out? I do — and it’s not like I’m some big spender. And I never said “yes” to those offers, either. I remember frustration at all the junk mail, and failed attempts to get off those lists. Maybe I should’ve taken a different tack — like what Beth Hamon of Portland, OR used to do when her mailbox filled up with credit offers after declaring bankruptcy:
I would take the credit card offers and write across the entire page, in bold black ink, “Credit cards are the tool of Satan! Banks are out to rob the poor! The game is rigged!” or something like that. And I’d finish with, “Remove me from your mailing list and NEVER send me this offer again!” Then I’d stuff the whole lot of papers and stuff into their postage-paid envelope and mail it all back to them on their dime.
They sure must’ve loved her. After about half a year, Hamon says, the offers tapered off. (Perhaps, she guesses, they thought she was…um…nuts?)
Now I almost NEVER get a credit card offer, maybe three times a year or so, and that’s fine with me.
I wonder — are people declaring bankruptcy these days getting buried under piles of credit card offers? Click here to share your thoughts directly with the newsroom… or leave a comment below.
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