Getting back at the junk mailers

Are you tired of getting junk mail from credit card companies? I used to simply put "junk mail refused-return to sender" on the envelope, but a friend who works for the USPS said that would simply get it thrown out. Recently, First Premier Bank decided to spam my mailbox with one of their ridiculous offers. I loved the letter I wrote them back so much that I decided to share here:

Ronald G. Reagan

xxxx Cty Hwy xxx

Steele, MO. 63877-9366

First Premier Bank

P.O. Box 5526

Sioux Falls, SD. 57117-9756

12-29-2014

To whom it may concern:

            This is a joke, right? I am seriously sitting here laughing my tail off at your ever so generous offer! So, let me get this straight. You will generously extend me a $400 line of credit, but only after you charge me a $99 annual fee AND a $95 setup fee. Oh, and there is that ever so small 36% APR. Talk about a sham! Right up front you have made almost $200 off of me before I even so much as make a purchase. How many people fall for this junk? You are starting to remind me of the Nigerian scammers I get e-mails from all the time.

            Let me be blunt. I would not do business with you if you were the last creditor on the face of the Earth. You are nothing more than a fancy criminal operation making money on the backs of the poor with your usurious rates and fees. I am most certainly a capitalist at heart, believing one should be able to make as much money as they can without government interference, but I feel in your case that the Federal Government should step in and put a stop to your ridiculous business practices. I seriously doubt that you have many happy customers anyway, so I’m sure it wouldn’t take much to get a bevy of people to contact their elected representatives about your shady practices. To quote the ever quotable Jerry Lawler when he was talking about Dusty Rhodes, you are “about as popular as cockroaches in the ghetto.”

            I have already asked you once before to remove me from your mailing list, a request that was quite obviously ignored. I will once again ask nicely to have myself removed from your mailing list since I have no interest whatsoever in giving you anything other than my 2¢ worth of opinion. I am a prior customer of yours, a customer who had a positive payment history with you, I never once had a late payment, and I also paid you in full well before the balance on the card was due to be paid. If this is how you treat your good clientele, I shudder to think of how you treat someone who has not been a client in the past or someone who had a poor payment history. 

As I noted in my last letter to you when you sent me a ridiculously similar offer some months ago, I would be willing to consider taking a credit card with your bank if you will drop the annual fee and the setup fee. I would also want the 36% APR dropped to something more reasonable, but until then, please remove me from your mailing list as I do not wish to be harassed with more junk mail. The more junk you send, the more junk I will send back. Why not save yourself the trouble and remove me from you mailing list? The paper is too hard to wipe my rear-end on, so I really have no use for the junk anyway other than to put it in the prepaid envelope you so generously provided.

You are really only a step above the Nigerian scammers in my mind! You prey upon the poor, hooking them in with the promise of easy credit while you become rich with a long litany of ridiculous interest rates and fees. Again, I believe I will contact my representatives in the Federal Government and suggest that banks such as yours be investigated for your obviously shady business practices. I am also going to post this letter on my blog, a blog which will then be shared with almost 900 Facebook friends and it will also be shared on Twitter. I realize it might not make a difference, but even the biggest movements had to start somewhere. Thank you and have a great day!