Slog tipper Jason writes: “The new phone books are in! And despite both my wife and I filing two separate opt outs, we still came home to find a big bag of Dex on our doorstep. Fuckin’ litterbugs…no literally, there were two slugs making sweet slimy love on the book.”

THIS AGGRESSION WILL NOT STAND.

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If you, like Jason, filed an opt-out request and Dex delivered a goddamn pile of phone books to you anyway, here’s what you do: Log in to your Seattle Catalog Choice account, find the Choices tab, click on Dex, and then hit the FILE A COMPLAINT button. If the button doesn’t work, you didn’t opt-out from Dex in time—that is, 30 days before they started delivering phone books. If the button works, your complaint is valid and has been forwarded to Seattle Public Utilities.

Here’s why your complaint matters: If Dex is routinely delivering phone books to the 34,100-odd people who opted out of phone books in Seattle, and enough people complain about it, Dex will be fined $125 for every book they’ve erroneously delivered. In the coming months, when Superpages and Yellowbook deliver their paper doorstops, you may need to repeat this complaint business.

If that isn’t satisfying enough, feel free to email council member Mike O’Brien, who sponsored the opt-out legislation, to complain about Dex. O’Brien’s office adores fan mail. (And if you’re looking for more ways to opt-out of junk mail, telemarketer call lists, etc, go read this.)

Former Stranger news writer Cienna Madrid has been a writer in residence for Richard Hugo House, a local literary nonprofit. There, she taught fiction classes and wrote 4/5 of a book about a death-row...

9 replies on “Get These Goddamn Phone Books Off My Lawn, Round Two”

  1. I don’t know about anyone else, but that was what I tried to do IMMEDIATELY after they dropped a Dex on my porch June 5, despite Catalog Choice showing that Dex received my opt-out request. The problem? I can’t click on that “File a Complaint” button until 90 days after my request was filed. Let’s see… 90 days after May 5 is… a day when I’ll have other shit to deal with.

    Thanks for providing O’Brien’s email. I’ll be complaining about Catalog Choice as well as Dex.

  2. Dex isn’t delivering shit. They contract this stuff out. Your phone books are being delivered by crackheads and illegal immigrants driven up from San Diego especially for this job in clapped-out fans. None of the people doing the delivery have ever heard of the opt-out list or could read it if they had. If they don’t deliver their load of books, they get thrown in their cage without supper.

    I mean, seriously. Have you ever SEEN these people? White van, trailing black smoke, no back door, people jumping in and out of the back…. I caught a crackhead phone book guy red-handed once, and he blew a lungful of cigarette smoke directly into my face and said “here you go!” like he was giving me a refreshing cocktail. Last year I saw the van, and it DIDN’T HAVE A LICENSE PLATE.

  3. Fnarf is entirely correct. Back when I worked security at a condo complex we had to deal with the phone book guys every year. They would literally ram open the gates with their crap vans in their desperation to get in. Every one of them I talked to was one of the sketchiest people I’ve ever met. Based on their reaction to the idea that they were not going to be allowed to deliver their phone books someone was going to hit them in the face with a pipe if they didn’t make their quota.

  4. Much as I disapprove of harassing people at home, that’s kinda what they’re doing here. Anybody have the home addresses of the fuckers who run Dex? I have some free speech to deliver to their lawns.

  5. @2: “Dex isn’t delivering shit. They contract this stuff out.”

    Obviously. How does that change anything?

    Man, I’m happy we’ll start fining these idiots soon, if only I could not get the coupon catalog mailers, I’ve already tried to remove myself to no avail.

  6. @5 it means that this isn’t the USPS. There isn’t a big office with beavering data entry clerks in suits making a list and checking it twice; instead it’s a fat slob in a dirty t-shirt telling a crew of drug addicts, “two on every doorstep and if you miss one we drop you off on a street corner 2,000 miles from home with no money or ID, now get moving, motherfucker, you’ve got an hour”.

    I don’t think Dex particularly cares, is what I’m getting at. Following this rule is going to require them to change the whole way they do business. I think they’d rather pay the fine.

  7. If you file a complaint, Dex actually calls you, apologizes, and sends someone back out to get the phonebook. Mine was gone by this afternoon. You know they have to pay somebody to do that shit.

  9. I opted out months ago. Got a letter today saying, ” our records indicate that your address is on our do not deliver list. UNFORTUNATELY, your address falls on a mailed route and postal regulations prevent us from stopping delivery of our phone book. However, we have sent your information to the local Postmaster asking them to not deliver our phone book.
    We hope this effort results in the non delivery of our phone book to your address. If not, please know that our phone book is 100% recyclable and can be recycled through your local recycling options. Any questions, please call 800-243-0219 “.
    This makes me see red!!!

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