Please stop asking us for obituaries

[MoonCat]

Maybe you could keep a form letter handy to send her that just repeats the same information:

AA BB obituary does not exist.
CC DD obituary does not exist.

Or keep a list of the ones she's asked for that you don't have and send her a note saying, "We've already looked for these, they don't exist. Please do not keep requesting the same names."

[taurinejunkie]

OP reminds me of a customer from my 411 days. She would ask for, say, Roman Catholic churches in Toronto, and then insist on receiving the first 3 numbers after the area code, the name of the street, and the etymology of the street name (which, surprise surprise, is not part of the listings). It got to the point where a supervisor told her to stop calling, but sadly enough, as she was extremely annoying but not openly rude or anything like that, nothing could be done to actually block her from calling us.

[Pagan]

Quoth Merriweather

I get the genealogy thing, my sister is heavily into that. But my sister does her own research - she goes to the library and searches thru microfiche, databases, etc herself. She doesn't rely on someone to do all that (am I correct that you don't charge for anything except the actual printing out of info?) for nothing or close to it.

That's not always feasible for the researcher. My mom and dad are both researching their families. Starting with my mom's maternal grandfather, and records she needs to get are in Scotland, others on her mother's side are in England and Wales. Not really realistic for her to jet over there. With my grandfather's side, they're all over the place in the Mid-West and the South. Again, not financially feasible for her to go to all of these places.

[computeraide]

Quoth thatcrazyredhead

Why is she requesting so many obituaries? Unless she's somehow related to all of these people and compiling an extensive genealogy, I can't think of a single reason why she'd want or need them.

Maybe she's trying to keep her phone book up to date. When someone dies, she crosses them out of the book?

[dalesys]

Quoth depechemodefan

She always sent requests by mail, though for the short time she had email, she had problems accessing it.

Who wants to bet that whenever her PC said "You've got mail!" she went out to the street to check?



(payments accepted in cash only, small unmarked bills)

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Quoth dalesys

Who wants to bet that whenever her PC said "You've got mail!" she went out to the street to check?



(payments accepted in cash only, small unmarked bills)

I would not be surprised in the least, especially if she's got AOL and the mailbox icon.

[PepperElf]

Quoth thatcrazyredhead

Why is she requesting so many obituaries? Unless she's somehow related to all of these people and compiling an extensive genealogy, I can't think of a single reason why she'd want or need them.

I'm wondering if she's trying to take advantage of them.

say... offering "services" or trying to see if they have rental agreements she can take over etc.

[BeenThereDoneThat]

Maybe FC and all her cousins could pool their money and get a subscription to Ancestry.com??? ...nah, that would make too much sense, and they would have fewer people to bother (since most people on there would just tell them to fuck off).

[depechemodefan]

She (and her cousin ) also mail copies of things they printed out with the death info. They are not from Ancestry.com

With our library, we have a subscription with Ancestry.com, but it has to be used in the library.

One person she requested an obit for only have month and year of death. We only accept full date, since we are not looking for a whole month. So of course she sends in a request for that person before . Ancestry gave us the same info (month and year) so I guess she is going to blow a gasket when I write to her, "we only can look with a complete date. If you want us to look for the whole month, you will have to pay the hourly rate, which is $100/her"

[Amadan]

Perhaps I'm just a sick and twisted puppy but,

For the ones she has been told repeatedly don't exist, why not make some up. Bonus points for the most creative!

Sorry - I'll get back to work now.