Screw Macy's

[alexxkay]

Tl;dr Macy's has the worst customer service I have ever seen.

I have an OCD thing where I try to reduce junk mail sent to our house. Fairly often, we get mail to people who don't live here: sometimes people who moved away long ago, sometimes just mystery errors. I write the companies involved and try to get these names removed from mailing lists.

Finding a "Contact" form or email address can be surprisingly tricky. Phone numbers are often easier to find, but I really dislike talking on the phone, especially to strangers, so I basically never do that.

For the last year, we have been getting mis-addressed catalogs from Macy's,  and I have been (intermittently) trying to get them to stop. Their email support is atrocious. They often misunderstand what I wrote. They give inconsistent instructions when they do understand. They demand that I telephone them before they are willing to do a simple address removal. (How do they handle complaints from mute people?)

After over a dozen emails (and time spent on on-line chat), I still haven't been able to get our house removed from their mailing list.

As I said, this is something I do quite often, so I have a wide base of experience. It is rare for this process to take more than two emails. The only other time I have failed to get a name removed was when the sender was a borderline illegal financial scam that had NO contact info other than the sales line.

This has been a sufficiently unpleasant experience that I feel it is worthwhile to give Macy's some negative word of mouth.

Comments

[sovay]

This has been a sufficiently unpleasant experience that I feel it is worthwhile to give Macy's some negative word of mouth.

That sounds extremely unpleasant. It's so obstructive it seems deliberate, but it seems like very bad policy to drive away potential customers by not correcting mailing address issues.

[dsrtao]

If it's mis-addressed, you can write "Not at this address, RTS" and put it back in the mail.

That won't work if the name is one of the people who do want to get mail at your house, but should otherwise.

[cvirtue]

That does indeed sound unpleasant.

I am curious why you make the effort to reduce the mail?

[alexxkay]

I have a strong aversion to waste. Unwanted mail is wasteful of paper, printing, postage, etc.

It probably has to do with being raised during the (all-too-brief) era of what Kestrell refers to as "The crying Indian" public service announcements during Saturday morning cartoons.

Also factored in is the time I spent at (IIRC) DSP, where my job was removing useless addresses from a marketing database. I have firsthand experience of how much marketing departments want to remove these things.

[jducoeur]

This is, oddly, one of the reasons to have a Twitter account. I had a similar problem with spam from Marriott Bonvoy (may they rot in hell); I spent months trying to get off their email list. I finally succeeded after I called them out publicly on Twitter, and had a conversation with their *public-facing* customer support, who managed to make it happen.

I doubt they pay any attention here, but many companies *do* pay attention when you badmouth them (with a direct @ link) on Twitter...

[alexxkay]

I did complain on Twotter, but I didn't think to @ them. Thanks for the tip!