Three little words

[DsBlu01CivEX]

Based on his brief experience in a telemarketing operation, Steve
Rubenstein, a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, has proposed "Three Little Words" that would stop the nuisance for all time. The three little words are "Hold on, please. "
Saying this while putting down your phone and walking off, instead of hanging up immediately, would make each telemarketing call so time-consuming that boiler rooms would grind to a halt. When you eventually hear the phone company's beep-beep-beep tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task.
This might be one of those articles you'll want to e-mail to your
friends: Three little words that could eliminate telephone
soliciting.
Likewise, when you get ads in your phone or utility bills, include
them when mailing your payment. Let the companies who sent them throw them away. When you get those pre-approved letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and junk like that, most of them come with postage paid return envelopes, right?
Well, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in
these cool little envelopes?
Send that ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express.
Send the pizza coupon to Citibank.
If you didn't get any other ads in the mail that day, then just send
them their application back! If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. You can even send the postage paid envelopes back empty if you want to just keep them guessing!
Eventually, if enough of us participate in this effort, the banks
and credit card companies would realize that they're getting most of their junk back in the mail. Let's let them know what it's like to
get junk mail, and the best part is that they're paying for it.
Twice. Let's help keep our postal service busy, too, since they say
e-mail is cutting into their business, and that's why they need to
increase postage again.