Stopping Direct Marketing To The Deceased
from the why-just-the-deceased?? dept
There's apparently a new company (why do we need a company for this?) that is working to stop direct marketing towards the deceased. They're partnering with funeral homes, trust and estate attorneys to put together their list. I'm wondering what the company is getting out of this that it's worth creating a whole company around, and why only the deceased are allowed to get out of direct marketing hell? Of course, it doesn't stop spam. Just phone calls and mailings.
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I would think they try to market their services to direct marketers interested in cleaning up their address databases. Though whether a DM is actually bothered by mailing to a dead person as long as they get paid by the advertiser...
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Ha! Try dealing with jury duty!
My father passed away in '96. The local jury commissioner insisted on continuing to mail jury duty notices to him (and my also recently deceased mother). Phone calls to them insisted that I had to bring a death certificate to them in order to have this stopped. Well, I'm not legally responsible for him and had no intention of wasting several hours trying to get fresh AND notarized death certificates, let alone waste the time coming to their offices. Oh, and paying several dollars per copy.
The hitch, however, is my father and I share the same first name and middle initial. I didn't want to attempt to argue with the sheriff should some nitwit decide to issue an arrest warrant for my father failing to appear.
So I grabbed his ashes and took a trip to the office in charge of such notices. At the counter I announced "He's here for jury duty" and put the container on the counter. The look on the clerk's face was priceless; even more so as the color drained from her face when I opened it and showed the ashes. I suppose the label on it reading "HUMAN REMAINS" added to the effect. She damn near ran out of that office. A manager appeared poste haste. After explaining the predicament, to her likewise horrified countenance, she resolved to correct the problem immediately with no additional effort required on my part.
That and telling the telemarketers how much grief they were causing me to relive every time they called seemed to put a pretty quick stop to the foolishness. It seemed to really get choked up while ranting at them.
I'd suggest this only works with cremated remains. Walking in their brandishing bones would be a little over the top.
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