Monday, November 26, 2007

Stuff and ranting

There is not much going on around here. My poor finger still hurts, so I am not getting any quilty stuff done. Did manage to shred all of the catalogue labels so I could give them to one of the local churches. They collect them, thank goodness. I think it is awful how many catalogues we get in the mail. Between Aud and I we get at least 30 every week, and I am not exaggerating! That adds up to a ton of paper.

We got a little snow, but it melted, so now it is just dreary looking. My azaleas have given up the ghost for the year, and the impatiens are just mush now. I will have to clean them up soon.

And I want to rant about Cook's Illustrated. I dropped my subscription to them earlier this year because they made me mad. It seemed like I was getting phone calls from them every other day for one thing and another and the man making the calls was very rude and pushy. So, I finally told them to take me off their mailing list, cancel my subscription, and don't call me, and don't email me. I still get the emails and today I got a book from them. You know, the kind that has the invoice pasted on the front and it has the bill in it? Well, this one didn't have that, so I thought, OK, one of my kids has sent me the cookbook for the year. I have all of them up to this year, and that was reasonable. SO, I cut the tape, opened the package, and there was an invoice in there. I was not happy. I very carefully retaped the box with clear tape, which is all they had done, and went to the post office. I told the clerk it had not been opened and return it to sender.
What irritates me about this is that I feel they are being deceitful by not putting the invoice on the front so you will know you have a bill coming. Plus, they shouldn't have mailed it to me in the first place. Anyone else have problems with companies doing that?

And, speaking of, I got a "free sample" in the mail from a company called "painVanish" several days ago. I haven't used it, but finally got around to reading the inclosed "letter" tonight. I am so lucky, they are going to send me my Welcome Pack which includes a FREE cooling relief patch and a 2-oz. tube of PainVanish....all for the introductery price of just 14.99! Aren't I lucky? If I don't like it all I have to do is return it postage-paid and cancel future shipments. Wow! So, I called them to tell them forget it, where did they get my name, and I was not interested. They have already mailed it! As I told the girl, I am not spending my gas or money to go to the post office to return it, I didn't order it, and they can forget about it. I also told her to be sure she put on my "account #" that if they tried to collect for this, I would turn them over to the state attorney general's office. Felt better after that, lol, but stuff like this is getting very frequent. Anyone else get any of this "wonder" cream?

I think that is enough ranting for now. Thanks for listening if you stuck this long.

3 comments:

zizzybob said...

It hasn't happened to me in a long while, but I do not open the package, write RETURN TO SENDER, all over it and put it in my mailbox for my postman to take. I would not waste my time going to the post office.
A long time ago, when a book company kept doing that, I ended up keeping the book. I sent back their invoice and wrote all over it, "I didn't order it, I don't want it and stop sending me unsolicited books." I never heard from them again.

Granny said...

When I was at mom's, she got a package of stockings. She said she had not ordered them .. all she ever wears is Hane's. She called them and they tried to tell her she had ordered them. They did tell her they would send her a postage paid envelope so she could return them. It was the same thing you're talking about though . . if we don't hear from you within 10 days, we'll send you your second shipment. Companies have gotten so forward! I don't blame you at all for ranting and I think if they didn't put anything on the outside of the box to indicate it was something you would have to pay for, I'd have just kept it and written them a letter thanking them for their nice gift!

Hopefully you won't get any more unsolicited packages!

Nicole said...

I have had the exact same problem with Cook's Illustrated. Not the phone calls, but the book I didn't order coming in the mail. It is deceitful, and kind of shocking when you think about how that conflicts with their basic premise of doing things properly.