Giving the Bank Shit, Again! (Happy Earth Day)

An email I sent to my bank today, having reached the end of my patience with the amount of advertising I receive with my monthly Visa bill.

This is just a note to let you know that although I have signed up for "paperless record keeping" I still receive a monthly bill for my Visa. Perhaps this is a legal requirement, but I must say that I object to the amount of advertising that comes with my monthly bill and the wastefulness of this unwanted annoyance.

This month's bill included a "Save on long distance..." sales letter, one of many such I have received since signing up for your Visa. I have never shown the tiniest bit of interest in an offer of this sort, and quite frankly, I never will, yet I continue to be pestered.

The other side of this page was blank and yet you included another piece of two-sided preprinted paper to tell me that someone from Lumby, BC and another person from Dartmouth, NS won some contest.

You could have published this information on the blank side of the page with the "Save on long distance" ad saving the printing costs, paper and ink that will now go into recycling without having had any effect on my motivation to purchase more things with my Visa. Better still you could have made use of the "Message Centre" in my online banking to make me aware of these things or published them in a online newsletter that I am free to sign up for or reject.

As far as I'm concerned, if someone signs up for "paperless record keeping" it is akin to putting a "no flyers" sign on one's mailbox. In other words: I do not want your advertising. If the law requires you send me a hard copy of my bill fine, but let that be all. I don't care about your Scotia Star network, most of those retailers don't exist in Manitoba anyways, and I don't care to join in any deals you are offering in conjunction with other companies. You're wasting paper and time with these pointless ads, and your are pissing off customers like myself with your thoughtlessness in the process, please stop.