Antique heirloom mailing list

[bunn]

In the post today we got a letter addressed to one of the previous owners of our house, from the Countryside Alliance.

We bought this house 7 years ago, and the addressee had moved out 8 years prior to that.

So, the mailinglist that his address was on must have been a *minimum* of 15 years old!

I know this is the country, people don't move about quite so much. But15 years? Clean your list, Countryside Alliance!

Comments

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Given that the Countryside Alliance didn't exist fifteen years ago, one of their feeder organisations must have very cobwebbed records.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

That hadn't occurred to me - that IS odd!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

We still get post to this office for people who left well before I joined, seven years ago. I know that's seven years not fifteen, but it's still pretty bad.

[chainmailmaiden]

We kept getting mail for people who'd lived in our house over 10 years ago until we signed up to the MPS. It mostly seemed to be from small local businesses though.

[tena524.livejournal.com]

A mere 15 years? I can top that one easily.

I was visiting my Mom some years back and got a *phone call* asking for Dad. He'd been deceased more than 20 years by that time. Moreover, the family home had been sold the same year he died. Mom moved to a new town and consequently had a different phone number.

I thought I was getting a sales call from the Twilight Zone...

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Wow. I think that has to win the Historic Marketing List Award.

[tena524.livejournal.com]

It turned out that this particular salesman was a new member of Mom's church, so he went cold-calling throught the church Directory, where she was listed as Mrs. Vincent instead of Ms. Eileen. It apparently hadn't ocurred to him that this was the traditional listing for a widow.

He as trying to sell replacement windows, and thought the 'man of the house' would be a more receptive target. As Mom lived in a condo where purchasing decisions are made in bulk by the board of trustees, he bombed out all round.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Eww, I find the idea of someone joining a church just to take advantage of the mailing list pretty creepy. Or possibly even worse if he joined the church in good faith (hah) but then used the directory as a side benefit - because while the first is just an example of pragmatic cynicism, the second feels like trying to mix two things which shouldn't be mixed. Money-lenders in the temple, anyone?

Mind you, I was always taught that Mrs Fred Bloggs was the correct way to refer to a married woman, and Mrs Mary Bloggs for a widow (I *think* it would also be correct for a divorced woman, but the existence of such was barely acknowledged when I first learned my etiquette.) So 'Mrs' plus male first name would to me indicate a living husband. I'm guessing the convention is different in the US?