Similarly, when a store annoys me for an address or phone number, and won't take "no" for an answer, I look it up on Google Maps and give the clerk the store's information.
Edible Arrangements is the most recent place this happened. The store wouldn't sell anything to me without an address and phone number, even though I was paying cash. The manager said the POS wouldn't even let him start a transaction without collecting the information.
So Edible Arrangements' marketing department is now spamming my local Edible Arrangements store.
1212 Main St, City, St
(area code) 515 1212 for phone
I gave up trying to explain why I prefer not to have that info, so I just give them obviously bogus info that I can remember. Most people don't even realize what you're telling them. They just robotically enter the numbers. They just want to get on with their day as much as you do, and really don't want to hear your diatribe about big brother tracking blah blah, can you hurry up the line is backing up.
Yup. When I was signing up at MEC I gave the clerk a fake number but accidentally included both the area codes for my city as the first six digits: “Whoa that’s weird, never seen them together like that before.” It’s easy for me to remember now at least.
I always do this, but I don't give them back just what they sent (minus anything with an ID or name on it) - I'd stuff it with all kinds of other junk mail, cardboard - anything to bulk it up. Once I dropped in a scrap of floor tile. I don't know if it arrived or not, but I really tried to take "junk" mail to a new level.
I do occasionally wonder if it would still work, but most business reply mail type spam has been supplanted by email nowadays.