Yesterday I received a pre-approved offer for Washington Mutual's (NYSE: WM) Visa Platinum card. I receive dozens of offers like this every month, even though I've never asked for a single one of them. While I find most of them mildly annoying, this one was particularly presumptuous. On the front of the envelope, this was written: "REMOVE CONTENTS before you discard". Jason, a blogger at Signal vs. Noise posted a picture of an offer he had received (pictured at right) with the same warning, and mused that "They know I'm going to toss it, but they want to give me a good scare first, cause, ya know, someone will definitely steal my identity if I don't take that fake credit card out of there."

The offer he received sounds exactly the one I have in my hand, because I too received a cardboard credit card. But here's my question for Washington Mutual:

Why the (expletive) should I have to open the envelope and remove the contents before I discard a promotional mailing that I didn't ask for and don't want?

Being an investigative reporter/Chris Hansen wanna-be, I called up the number provided in the mailing to try to find out. After sitting on hold for about five minutes (and being told 11 times that the call might be being recorded), I was connected with a lady with a thick accent. After explaining that I didn't want to open an account (although she insisted I give her my reservation number and I had to repeat it five times), I asked her my question. Here's our conversation:

Zac: "Why do I have to open this junk mail before I throw it out?"

Lady: "I don't know sir."

Zac: "Well can I talk to someone who does?"

Lady: "No sir."

Zac: "Well can I just talk to your supervisor?"

Lady: "You can but she won't know either."

Zac: "Do you have a number for someone who might?"

Lady: "No sir."

Zac: "OK. Well thanks anyway, and have a nice day."

Lady: "Do you still want to open an account?"

This is a case of one of two things: Duplicitous marketing or a mass mailing that could possibly be causing identity theft. Either the warning on the envelope is there to make you think your personal information could be in danger, forcing you to open their mailing or they actually are sending me unsolicited junk mail that contains enough information to steal my identity. I have a hunch the first is the right answer, but I still can't decide which would be more evil.