I’ve been traveling for awhile and using a virtual mailbox to receive mail. It’s a basic service. I pay an annual fee and when I receive mail, the company takes a photo of the envelope and sends me an alert that I’ve received mail.
When I log in, I look at the envelope photo and can make several choices. Depending on what I choose, I probably pay an additional fee for the extra service.
I don’t receive a lot of mail, and before I left Canada I contacted companies I deal with to reinforce that I did not want mail.
For online financial institutions such as Questrade, EQ Bank, and Tangerine, they don’t normally send me mail. In fact, there may an extra fee to receive mail through Canada Post! There’s no issue. I can log on to these accounts, read statements, check my activity, download tax information, and so on.
Same with my credit cards. All mail stopped because I can log on online and see what’s going on. With the exception of Envision Collabria Mastercard. They piss me off, so I get a statement from them every month showing a credit balance.
Worldsource Financial
I’ve talked about Worldsource Financial in this blog. It’s a piece of shit mutual fund investment company that Coast Capital uses. It’s probably the same “genius” at Coast Capital who entered into a business arrangement with Worldsource who also thought it would be fun to torture their clients/members with Collabria Mastercard.
Yup, Coast Capital has joined Envision in a race to the bottom!
In May, 2023, I was in contact with my “financial advisor” at Coast Capital to halt all mail from Worldsource. I get a shitload of mail from them. AFTER requesting the mail to be stopped because there is TOO MUCH! Monthly statement, quarterly statements, bi-annual statements, annual statements. Times two because I have registered and non registered accounts.
We set up for me to have access to view my Worldsource statements online and stop all mail.
LOL! Yeah right. Worldsource Financial has a history of playing stupid little games with their clients.
NO Coast Capital mail
While I was at it, I stopped all mail from Coast Capital too. Not that I get a lot of mail from Coast Capital but I didn’t want anything at all.
There’s nothing Coast Capital sends me in the mail that they can’t send me an email about.
Do I really need a “package” about their AGM and voting for board of directors? Why can’t Coast Capital be more environmentally friendly and send me a link to where this information can be viewed on their website?
Soooooo…. off I head to Europe thinking that I will have very little mail to deal with through my virtual mailbox.
Virtual mailbox
Just a little bit more information on what happens when I receive notification of received mail from my virtual mailbox.
First I look at the envelope photo and make a decision from that image. What are my choices?
- Open and scan
- Recycle
- Shred
- Forward
I get a set number of open and scans each month. 5 pages a month. After that I am charged 50¢ a page. Seeing as how I expected to receive very little mail, I chose my annual plan based on that amount. I can upgrade to a more expensive plan with more scans included, but for my purposes I didn’t think it would be necessary. Ha! Little did I know that Coast Capital and Worldsource were out to piss me off with mailing scads of unwanted crap.
Often I can tell by the photo on the envelope what’s probably inside and that it’s something that does not interest me. Without the envelope being opened, I request it to be recycled. No charge to me.
Once the envelope has been opened and scanned, I have 30 days to make a decision what to do with it or else I incur storage fees.
Hopefully my choice is to recycle the contents and that way it won’t cost me any extra money.
Occasionally I need to forward a piece of mail to a friend to hold for me. There’s a service charge for that plus postage.
Other times the envelope contents don’t really interest me, but there is confidential information that I don’t want someone else to read, so I request it to be shredded. That is an extra cost for me.
Inundated with Worldsource mail!
In a 6 month period, I received more mail from Worldsource than all my other mail combined!
About 17 pieces of mail!
Like what the fuck Worldsource and Coast Capital! What part of “NO MAIL” is so hard to understand?
And just in case it might be important, I request it to be opened and scanned. Only to see a monthly or quarterly or whatever statement. You know. The one I can read online.
And unfortunately, because this is financial information and has my name and maybe my birthdate and social insurance number on it, I have to pay extra to have it shredded.
Unwanted Coast Capital mail!
I don’t receive as much mail from Coast Capital as I do from WorldSource, but when I’ve requested NO MAIL, receiving any envelope is one too many.
And just because mail from a financial institution might be important, I request it to be opened and scanned.
Coast Capital sent me a generic reminder about safety deposit boxes renewals and the prices for each size box.
Fortunately I could request that to be recycled at no charge to me.
But Coast Capital ain’t done with me yet. Because Coast Capital thinks I’m a dumb ass, they sent me a second identical generic safety deposit box payment reminder a day later.
I have ONE safety deposit box. You’d think those buffoons at Coast Capital could send a specific letter with the one safety deposit box charge customized to what I have.
Why even be environmentally unfriendly and send this information in the mail? Surely a customized email would be sufficient.
Oh, in addition to verbally informing Coast Capital about NO MAIL. There is also an option on my online banking to opt in for digital statements and T5 tax information.
I also opted in online because I don’t trust anyone at Coast Capital to actually follow through on a verbal or written request. Though you’d think NO MAIL would be an easy enough task to handle.
When I worked at one of their competitors, each client account had a little box that we could check off if they requested no mail. We’re talking the beginning of this century. If one of their competitors had the technology to put this NO MAIL request into place 20 years ago, you’d think Coast Capital technology would have caught up by now and can also handle this.
Twitter battle
When my virtual mailbox advised me I had yet another piece of mail from Coast Capital, I was so frustrated that I got into a bit of a Twitter, errr X, battle.
Now, I’m thinking – hunh???!!! It says right on the optional mail that I will no longer receive paper documents of my T5 slips (tax receipt). But according to Hailey, Coast Capital will just mail out a paper copy anyway even though I don’t want one. Same deal with every other client who opted out.
Why is Coast Capital wasting money on envelopes and postage and being environmentally unfriendly by mailing out the information that clients specifically requested only receiving digitally?
And as you may or may not have figured out by now, after I requested the “open mail and scan” option from my virtual mailbox company, the mail I received from Coast Capital is indeed my T5 tax receipt.
GRRRRR!!!!!!
And yes, I downloaded it to my computer as proof that Coast Capital mailed it to me.
Now I have to pay to have it shredded, due to my personal tax information on my tax receipt. Thanks a bunch Coast Capital.
Coast Capital and Worldsource Financial Should Honor “No Mail” Requests
I’m not sure why Coast Capital goes out of its way to piss off their clients. They are costing me a lot of extra money in unwanted mail.
And apparently it does not matter if you opt in to receive digital copies of your tax receipts, Coast Capital is out to piss off their members and waste time and money mailing them out anyway.
How does Coast Capital go out of their way to piss you off? Go ahead and lay it on me in the comments!
Published by Cheryl @ The Lifestyle Digs on February 28, 2024.
