I’ve been a Tracfone customer for years, and my opinion of them has just taken a drastic hit. They lied to me about why they wanted my home telephone number, and then they chose to market to it. I’m on the National Do Not Call list for a reason. Yes, I have a business relationship with Tracfone, but keep this up and we won’t! Telemarketing is unacceptable!

Actually, getting the Tracfone junk mail is frustrating too. They used to send out mailings with the address printed in a font that looks like handwriting. Deceptive!

• As states investigate extended auto warranty industry, consumers launch class-action suit against Wentzville firm
• Want the phone number to the “Your car’s warranty is about to expire” people?
• Internet Prank Calls Car Warranty Robo Caller En Masse

I filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission via the Do Not Call web site.

• Republican Party of Virginia: 2 Absentee Ballot Applications; 1 generic “Vote Republican”
• Fimian for Congress (Republican): 2 mailings: combined anti-Connolly and pro-Fimian
• Obama for America: one legal sized postcard
• Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee: 15 negative ads about Fimian
• Democratic Party of Virginia: 11 mixed ads, inside page usually split 2/3 vs. 1/3 with “info” about each candidate.

It is very surprising that I didn’t receive even more mail. For the 2007 election cycle, I received more than twice as much junk mail from the candidates and their parties than I did this time. But the mailings for this cycle were of much larger and heavier stock paper than a year ago. If the campaigns had used “normal” postcards or envelopes, they could have done even more mailings. Luckily, I think (hope, pray) that they have wised up: People are sick of political mail and are throwing it away without looking at it. So they make it more obnoxious by making it larger.

The Internet was better represented in these mailings:

• The Democratic Party of Virginia included the Obama web site URL and their own anti-McCain web site URL in 13 of the 15 mailings.
• The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee only referred people to their anti-Fimian web site URL.
• The Republican Party of Virginia, Fimian for Congress, and Obama for America gave their own web site URL.

The other interesting thing I noticed is the shift on the addressing of the mailings. The mailings received early in the race were generally addressed to “The Clark Household.” The mailings received nearer to the election were generally addressed to my wife. I received no mailings addressed to me by name. There were also quite a few mailings addressed to “Current Resident” which is an insult. We know you’ve got the names, you’ve bought the registrar lists from the county, why waste money sending mail to “Current Resident?” And yes, I still wish I could opt-out of allowing the county to sell my name and information.

(Update: I forgot to link to this letter to the editor of the local paper concerning the political junk mail of the season.)

Is it art? Is it commercial? Does it tug at your heartstrings? Does it make you think? Yes to all of those questions. An awesome commercial.

I guess we’ll find out if Comcast really is reading blogs.

During the 2007 election cycle, which included the Virginia state Senate, Delegate, and local offices, I collected all the political junk mail that was sent to my home. I’ve finally gone through it all (80 pieces of mail) to present this summary:

There were five items I received that were not authorized by a candidate:

• For Jay O’Brien, a postcard by the Family Foundation Action
• For Republicans, a sample ballot, by the Republican Party of Virginia
• A notice for the County Board of Supervisor’s vote on illegal immigration, by Corey Stewart, paid for with my tax dollars. Interesting reading at Corey Stewart Under Investigation. Potomac News articles:
  • Legality of Stewart mailer questioned (Oct. 12, 2007)
  • Attorney clears Stewart over mailer (Nov. 3, 2007)
• For Faisal Gill, a letter from Rep. Tom Davis
• For and From the Republican National Committee, a fundraiser masquerading as a survey (I’ll write more about this item in a separate post later this week)

Jay O’Brien’s campaign sent out two items that are noteworthy. One was a letter from his wife, Sevea O’Brien. It came in a light yellow envelope with a return address of PO Box 5, Clifton, VA 20124. There should be a law that all campaign mailings have the “Authorized By” statement on the outside of the envelope. Keeping the disclosure hidden inside the envelope is deceptive. See Good Move or Campaign Tactic Overload? for more on this letter.

The other odd mailing for the O’Brien campaign was a postcard from Waja Grimm, of Turkey Run Court. Who in the world is Waja Grimm? Where is Turkey Run Court? It sounds like an insult of a judicial system. An internet seach shows she is a member of the governing board of Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy. I also found her complete street address online, which actually is a street called “Turkey Run Court” in Manassas. I wonder why she didn’t include the complete address in her mailing? Was she worried about her privacy? If so, she should either get a PO Box, or not endorse candidates. Is there a rule that campaign mailings must include a complete return address? If not, there should be.

I wonder why the candidates and campaigns don’t make better use of the web. Only one of the candidates for state-level office included their campaign’s web site URL in their mailings, and he only included it one time in the twenty mailings I received. The candidates and parties spent thousands of dollars on these campaigns, but then don’t include one line of text about how the voters can get more information about the candidate? That is a bizarre waste of money.

The candidate web sites could be found at:

• Paul Nichols
• Faisal Gill (The domain registration expired on December 4, 2007. I assume this means that Mr. Gill is giving up on future plans to run for public office.)
• George Barker
• Jay O’Brien

So, election 2007 is over. And only 329 days to go until the Presidential and Congressional (House and a Senator for me) elections. Oh boy. I can’t wait to see how much junk mail comes in over the next year for those.

I just visited the BP gas station nearest my home. Sometime in the past week, they have added TV screens at each pump playing news updates and weather. Ugh! I wont’ be back, despite the convenience of this gas station. There is an Exxon across the road, which is just as convenient; plus at least 4 other gas stations along — Road that are also on my way. If I wanted to watch TV, I would watch TV. I get the weather in my car. Plus I know you are going to start playing commercials for the stuff you sell in the convenience store. Who needs 8 TV sets, all blaring their loud audio, slightly out of sync with each other, so I’m listening to a jumbled mess while I’m trying to pump my gas. I know you won’t remove these TV sets from this station just because of one complaint. but think about the people who won’t take the time to complain. Sorry, but I think the TV sets at the pump is a silly decision. Thanks for your time, Michael

So I visited Vistaprint, and tried to log into my account, the one that was closed. I spent a good amount of time with a Vistaprint customer service representative back in April, and told him to close my account. Well that really worked. I guess I now need to worry about my address getting further sold. The privacy policy for the motivational speakers says they will market the information they collect. I now get to file a Form 1500 on them.

I’ve now emailed Vistaprint and submitted my request that they close my account. Tomorrow I’ll be mailing them the request. Of course, at this point, I doubt they will really do anything.