Like most people, I get bombarded with credit card solicitations constantly. I hate them. They're about the most intrusive combination of data mining, "personalization" techniques, and good old-fashioned slimy deception I've ever seen.

I've gotten some really irritating credit card solicitations lately, but The Home Depot takes the cake. I should have smelled a scam when the envelope they sent me claimed "10% Off Coupon Enclosed!" Like a sucker, however, I opened it.

Inside, there was a coupon, as promised. Unfortunately, it was only valid in conjunction with a pre-approved credit card offer. Not only were the terms really bad, but the sales pitch that accompanied the offer was exceedingly obnoxious in its use of "personalization."

So what, you may ask, is "personalization?" Marketroids would describe it as the use of data mining to customize interaction between business and a consumer. In plain English, this means gathering as much information about you as possible, in order to spam you as intrusively as possible.

The "personalization" performed by The Home Depot was fairly simple. They assigned a meta object to my first name, as it appeared in their database, and used this object to create a "personalized" sales pitch. In no fewer than 3 places, my first name appears in a sentence of the sales pitch.

I don't know about you, but I don't like businesses writing me letters that address me by my first name. Call me weird, but The Home Depot's marketing department isn't my friend. I don't know a single person who works there. So I certainly don't want them writing a letter to me, addressing me by my first name, and trying to be friendly in an ersatz data-mining way.

Foolishly, they sent me a postage-paid reply envelope. I decided to reply, but not quite in the way they intended:

<My name>
<My address>
Redmond, WA 98052

Heather Wilson
Director, Credit Sales
The Home Depot
PO Box 9838
Macon, GA 31297-9838

25 July, 2002

Dear Heather,

Quite frankly, your letter, which I’ve attached, made me very angry.

Let’s get a few things straight:

1. When you send me an envelope with "10% Off Coupon" emblazoned across the front, I expect a coupon, not a credit card sales pitch.
2. I don’t know you. You don’t know me, and you’re trying to sell me something. Where I come from, that makes you Heather, and me Mr. <my last name>. Maybe you do things differently in Georgia, but last time I checked, I’m in the Pacific Northwest. Not Georgia.
3. I can’t imagine why you’d think I’d accept credit terms as terrible as these. Especially the $1.00 minimum finance charge, if you overlook the usurious 21% APR! It’s the worst credit card offer I’ve received in years, and the sort of offer I’d expect to see extended to someone with horrible credit—not someone like me, who has an extensive (and spotless) credit history.

I think you owe me an apology, and I definitely don’t want to receive any future credit card sales pitches from your company—especially those disguised as a 10% off coupon.

Very truly yours,

<My name>

I don't expect to receive an apology, and I don't expect The Home Depot to stop their intrusive data mining practices, either. Most people just ignore this sort of thing. However, I think that "personalization" deserves a massive consumer backlash, and if you hate this trend as much as I do, take action! Write to companies that use intrusive data mining, and tell them exactly why you're not buying their products. Maybe, if it costs them enough money, those companies will reconsider.

Until then, don't trust mail carriers bearing coupons.

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