Last week, after learning people over the age of 55 can get a discount at Walgreens the first Tuesday of the month, I wondered what other discounts I could get as a person that is over 55. And I need some perks because so far being over 55 isn’t all that rewarding. So far, all I do is look for my granny glasses and buy granny glasses for every room in the house, every car and every purse. Of course I’ve heard of AARP because they clearly have a strong marketing team, (put a pin in that) as ads are being fed to me from every avenue possible. Plus, my father in law recommended becoming a member. (Put a second pin in that). So, for $12 I now have a one year membership that also extends to my husband. I get a trunk organizer as a bonus gift. I already have a trunk organizer so I’ll give this one to Don, who clearly has no idea he needs one but he will soon appreciate the benefits of marrying someone 4 years older.
If I’m being honest, one of my main motivations for signing up for AARP was to get 10% off at Outback because I loves me some bloomin’ onion. I’m told there are other discounts and benefits like explaining the Medicare process, understanding the health care plans and how to enroll, etc. My opinion of the Medicare process is akin to algebra. You could explain it to me 1,000 times and I still won’t get it. Somehow I’ll get through it like a deer in headlights, as that is how I passed college algebra.
I signed up and created an account. Opted out of 10 “email publications” that were offered to me and went on about my life, fantasizing about my future discounted bloomin’ onion.
I received an email thanking me for signing up and letting me know there’s an app for my phone. Great. Downloaded that. I’ll need that to show the Outback server. Super handy.
And another, letting me know my car organizer would be shipping soon. Awesome. Can’t wait.
And then it began. Every day since signing up, I have received at least one email, usually two, and multiple, daily notifications on my phone. If you are counting, that would be at least 30 emails a month, if they continue at this cadence. Oh hell no. I already get too many spammy emails. So, I go back into my account and opt out of all communications and turn off notifications on my phone.
And then I get another email from AARP: “You have opted out of all communications. We will still send an email when your membership renews.” Fine.
And another email about changing privacy settings, and how they are sharing my email with third parties. Sharing my info? Nope.
Back into my account I go to turn off permission to share my email to third parties and to change my privacy settings and anything else that looks like it will generate a fart of an email.
And then I get another email from AARP: “We have confirmed the change to your privacy settings.”
And another: “To opt out of third party sharing, please confirm your identity by clicking here.”
Of course when I did that, it generates another email: “We have confirmed opting out of third party sharing.”
Later, another email is received from AARP: “We are sorry to see that you have opted out, you can opt in at any time by….bla bla.”
And this is when I lost my shit, because we are now approaching 20 or so emails, in less than a week of membership. Back to the website I go to find out how to contact AARP to send them an obnoxious email. Of course there’s no way to contact them other than calling and I don’t want to be on hold, transferred, pressing 1 for this and 2 for that. That’s an entirely different kind of hell I’m not prepared to handle today.
So I send them a message via Facebook, letting them know that I am unhappy about the number of emails and this alone will make me rethink my membership next year and also, by the way, I’d like to spend my retirement years doing things other than managing my AARP membership. Of course, that was answered by a stupid bot, offering me several things to sign up for that might help solve my issue. And then the next time I found myself scrolling on Facebook, up pops an AARP ad because now that I’ve interacted with the AARP Facebook Messenger Bot, I’m tagged as someone that needs to see AARP ads. For the love of God please stop this nonsense.
I gotta hand it to the AARP marketing folks. They are 100% doing their job which would be a lot more impressive if I were helping that marketing team instead of being the audience. They get an A+ in capturing names in advance of needing Medicare so that they have an audience just waiting to buy a plan that they sponsor. I get it. As I mentioned, it’s my father in law who is very satisfied with his AARP Medicare plan and membership discounts and he recommended that I sign up, as we were having dinner with them at Outback one night and he was showing the server a coupon for a free bloomin’ onion from AARP. FREE.
He probably received that coupon in an email.