Selling my name

It took me awhile to figure it out. I guess I am a slow learner. I had been receiving pre-approved 'cheques' for $15 000 from Citi bank. First of all, we don't even have one of these financial institutions in our community. The closest one is just under 2 hours away in a small city I go to maybe once a year.

I ignored the first two cheques that came in the mail, shredding them and rather unnerved that my name is in the records of a bank I didn't really even know existed. When the third one came, I found the 'contact us' number on the form and called the bank asking to speak with customer service. 'We don't have customer service here', she replied. Ok, it was mean of me, but I giggled at this.

I explained to the nice lady who I was and why I was calling. I wanted to know how my name got on their list and what I had to do to get it off. She said that undoubtedly my name was acquired from a magazine company selling it to banking institutions and other companies. Ok I may live in small prairie town Canada but I did know they did such things. I just had never been targeted before.

She said the main branch who sends out the letters is in Baltimore, Maryland. Maryland!! I am in Western Canada for pete's sake.

I asked very nicely to have my name removed from the list and she said that she would click whatever buttons needed to be for that to stop.

Fast forward four more months. I am still getting those damn cheques. I called again just before Christmas and told my sad sad story once more and asked why I am still getting them. She said it takes 3 to 6 months to get my name off a list.

I may not be a software programmer or a computer engineer, but I do know that all it would take is to delete my name off the list or uncheck my box or something incredibly complicated like that.

I asked her for the contact number for this mysterious main branch in Maryland but she said they were not allowed to give out such information. I guess I could google every branch there and call them all, but that seems rather futile and moot, and expensive if they don't have a toll free number.

It's insane! I wonder how many people cash/activate those cheques?