Exclusive Offer!
Somebody hasn’t done their homework. I keep getting piles upon piles of offers for car insurance. This wouldn’t be a bad thing if, in fact, I owned a car. Or had a driver’s license. But I don’t, so I’m not quite sure what to do with all the offers I keep getting from CARE, State Farm, Geico, Progressive, and the rest. Unlike telemarketers, who are easy enough to get rid of*, I’m still stumped by the insurance offers.
But I had an idea recently, and will have to try it out. Next time someone offers me a great policy, I’ll take them up on it. What harm could there be in insuring the 76 bus to Hackensack? I’d be really curious, too, to find out what the monthly premium is on the 6:46 train to Hoboken. Do I still get a discount for being accident-free, or for not having points on the license that I don’t have? Stay tuned… I’ll report the results (if any) here.
*Two possible solutions here. One is to follow a script similar to that used by Augusten Burroughs in Magical Thinking. The other is to just say the following, which I’ve used to great effect on telemarketers: “Listen, bud. I’ve done telemarketing for a living. We can do this one of two ways: you put me on your Do Not Call list and hang up now, or I keep you on the phone for the next two hours and still don’t buy anything.”
Tags: insurance, junk mail, telemarketing
August 5th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Sometimes you can find “opt out” instructions in reeaaallly teeny tiny little print on the offending mail. If not, google “opt out insurance junk mail” and save the planet. Your postal carrier will thank you.