SMOjoe.com

Try as they might, Canadians cannot stop CanPages from delivering their obsolete advertising product to their homes and offices.

There is no mechanism on the CanPages website to allow consumers to opt out of the delivery scheme.

On Thursday Jan 28th, 2010 two nice people from CanPages visited the 2nd floor hallway of 176 John St and left behind five pounds of rubbish in eight tiny piles outside everyone’s door.  I told them to stop and to please remove the debris, and I personally tried to give one unit back - the deliveryman said nothing, smiled and took it down that hall. He left it on a stack beside the stairs. That’s when I vowed to do something about it, and to write this resource page demanding action, and accountability and CHANGE.

CanPages is pollution, and because I have a microscopic carbon footprint I really don’t want to be associated with such waste. So I went online to see if it is possible to opt out of the delivery program, and I discovered that it is not possible – there is no form or web page on the website whatsoever to allow Canadians to opt out of the delivery system. But there is however a place to leave a short message, which I did…

In a section called Book Distribution Feedback, there is a form in which humans can leave suggestions…

While researching this topic and checking the level of societal outrage on this issue, I discovered that I’m not alone. There are other people who have also complained with various amounts of success, but nobody has yet succeeded in making this company listen, or change their evil ways. There is still no ‘opt out’ form on the website.

Darren Barefoot spells out some CanPages abuses in his piece, From The Front Door Directly To The Recycling Bin in which he identifies greenwashing in their marketing messages.

And there’s a Facebook group entitled, Stop Forcing Us To Accept Giant Unsolicited Phonebooks which I joined immediately.

In the group’s desc page I read how the CanPages PR people were quick to quench the fire of the original ‘creative complainer’ and group creator, by rushing a delivery man special to pick-up the offending book.  But there are also some details there on how you can write an email or phone CanPages and get them to come pick up your book. PLEASE DO THIS.

Please call CanPages and ask them to come pick up their garbage.

Phone: 604-525-1551
Toll-Free Phone: 866-525-1551
Fax: 604-516-0823
Toll-Free Fax: 877-525-1519
Email (general enquiries): customercare@canpages.ca

Giant yellow books full of alphabetically indexed print advertising are less than useless today, but of course this fact negates the company’s print division business model, which charges money for ads in the tome.  Paul Batchelor, the Yellow Pages Group vice-president of sales for the western region is quoted in a CBC article Residents demand companies end unwanted phone book deliveries saying, “About two-thirds of the population still use the printed product on a regular basis,” which is simply not true.  I know this convienent statistic isn’t true, and I have proof.  Anyone who walks into the lobby of a secure condo building in Toronto will see piles of these yellow books NOT BEING USED. The books are ignored and I suspect that less than 10% are taken upstairs by the residents. These books will sit there for months as every resident passes and does not ‘opt in’ to their old fashion advertising program.  Eventually the books end up in the dumpster behind the building.  You know that’s true.

CanPages PR trolls, before you leave a comment on my blog saying ‘When your basement is flooded and you need to call the plumber…‘ or something like that, just know that I’ve seen and read all your tricks, and I enjoyed the battle between activitist Ed Kohler and your own PR bot KenC.  And Ed Kohler also has a Facebook group, Wasteful Unwanted Phonebook Action Super Society. But I’m not advocating violence or anything… I just want to be able to visit CanPages website and opt out of the phone book delivery scheme.