The many faces of AARP (Are you above 50? If so, what did you do with their solicitation letter?)

American Thinker ^ | 04/03/2012 | Theodore Dawes

[SeekAndFind]

My wife just turned 50, so she recently experienced that least favorite American rite of passage: the arrival of the dreaded solicitation letter from AARP.

I'm pleased to say that she took advantage of this opportunity to do precisely as I have done for the past eight years: she immediately and with malice aforethought dropped the solicitation in the trash. Not that she was offended by the reminder of her advanced age; rather, because she holds AARP in contempt.

So do I.

Two quick questions, dear reader:

1) Do you belong to AARP?

2) Which AARP do you belong to?

If you're confused by the second question your confusion is, in AARP's eyes, a marketing triumph.

You are likely thinking, "Which AARP? Why, I belong to the American Association of Retired Persons. I belong to that AARP."

Surprise. There is no such thing as the American Association of Retired Persons. The non-profit organization that was founded in 1956 to help older folks was renamed some years ago. It's now called AARP and it exists as three separate organizations. (Actually four, but for our purposes let's ignore the international branch. This is confusing enough.)

The umbrella organization is a non-profit known simply as AARP.

Then there is the AARP Foundation. It's the AARP of old, a non-profit dedicated to providing for the needs of America's retired folk, or to phrase it more accurately, to anyone 50 or older who's willing to pony up the $16 annual fee. This is the outfit that trains older drivers, provides tax preparation assistance and provides other do-good services.

You belong to that AARP.

[kingcanuteus]

If it is a return envelop, return it empty. Let them pay for the postage.

[anonsquared]

I returned their postage paid envelope filled with washers ($10.+ postage due!) and told them to quit waging generation warfare.

[tx_eggman]

I tore it all up and sent it back to them in their postage paid envelope.

[tx_eggman]

I tore it all up and sent it back to them in their postage paid envelope.

[mistfree]

Please, don’t shred them, they’re valuable! I can’t wait for them to arrive. I take the envelope with the return postage paid and.... retun it to them. If enough people did that do you think we could make them go broke? No, neither do I but my evil twin loves doing it anyway.

[svcw]

I return the pre paid envelope with a note, leave me the hell alone.

[count-your-change]

My neighbor shows me all the AARP junk mail he receives and it never stops. I suggested they give him the money spent on the stuff they send so he could retire early.

[hal ogen]

Tear. Insert with some heavy metal scrap. Place in return envelope. Mail.

[Happy Rain]

It took about five years of me sending back their trash with—TAKE ME OFF YOUR MAILING LIST YOU MISERABLE LYING SOCIALIST SOBs before they finally left me alone.
The last one had OBAMA SUCK UP added to it.

[Adder]

I do something similar and castigate them for their support of zerocare reminding them they will be ther FIRST to go, being old and all.

They have left me alone for a while now.

[Sir Napsalot]

Yes, but does the action stop further mailing from AARP?

Maybe in the organization’s mind, (eventually)

“Resistance Is Futile, You Will Be Assimulated”.

[myrabach]

I always just drop it in the trash... so I didn’t realize the postage paid return envelope... now my evil twin is grinning. I’m thinking maybe I’ll just stuff it with my other junk mail and return.

[GBA]

Excellent post!

I'm hard on the once proud Republican party, but Reps. Wally Herger (R-CA) and Dave Reichert (R-WA) give me reasons to believe in a great American comeback.

[Harley]

I heard about a guy 20 years ago that kept getting solicitations for oil company credit cards. He got even by filling some good sized wooden crates with rocks and attached their postage paid by recipient envelope to the crate and marked them ‘Drilling Samples”. Maybe somebody will send AARP some postage paid by them coffin sized crates filled with rocks labeled “Burial Container Examples”.

[Big Horn]

I stuff it with papers.

[Mr. Lucky]

I always cram all of the contents of their original envelope into the return envelope. That way, they not only have to pay extra postage, but they naturally assume they have some senile old fart on the hook (which they may have) and immediately send me more stuff. It's pretty close to a perpetual motion machine.

[anonsquared]

See my post #3. AARP never sent another solicitation to me.

The washer trick usually works. I also wrote on their forms that if they didn’t remove me from their list pronto, the next postage paid envelope they sent me would be returned to them taped to a box of rocks with $1000.+ postage due.

[George from New England]

I went to the fridge, found some outdated deli meat. Stuffed it in the return envelope to add weight to it.

Put out in mail.

[citizen]

Years ago when getting junk mail, I used to remove my name and address and then stuff everything they sent in the postage paid envelope and return it to them at their cost.

As for AARP now, I just s-can it, they aren’t worth the effort to send it back to them.