After getting the zillionth unwanted solicitation for a United Airlines Mileage Plus Platinum Super-Duper Why-Haven't-You-Signed-Up-Already credit card, I decided to contact the United Vice President who signed the offer. His name is Robert Sahadevan. His title is Vice President of Mileage Plus, United's affinity program (of which I am a member, although I'm beginning to think about getting out because of these endless mailings).

I don't remember when these offers started, but I would guess at least a couple years ago. For a while, I simply shredded them. Finally, I said "Enough already!" I contacted United's customer service department and asked them to stop them. They said they'd take care of it. But the letters kept coming. So I contacted them again. They said they'd take care of it, but "Make sure you opt out of credit card solicitations with the credit bureaus!" I'd already done that but I did it again. (I rarely get other credit card offers, but United's marketers apparently don't care what their customers want.)

After the second or third call to United's customer service department, I started logging the offers as I received them. That was in December 2008. Recently, they appeared to have stopped, but then I got another one a week or two ago. So I decided to contact Mr. Sahadevan.

No luck finding his contact information on United's site, but Google works. I found this interesting article about our guy; at least I'm not the only one he annoys. And I found him on spoke.com, via which you can send him e-mail (after a free registration on the site). I sent him a pointed but civil message asking him to fix the problem. For good measure, I sent the same message to United's customer service department and their investor relations e-mail address.

Given United's track record, I doubt that anything will change as a result. Until it does, I will be avoiding United for my travel whenever possible. If they are this incompetent at managing direct mail marketing, what else are they incompetent at?