Every year on my birthday, I get a card from our mortgage lender. And every year, this makes me angry.
This year’s card was cute and the woman who underwrote our mortgage jotted down a couple of sentences. I bet she has a daily slot on her calendar along the lines “9:07 — 9:12 Sign birthday cards for the clients whose birthdays are three days from today.”
My husband thinks this is a nice gesture. His reasoning is that the card is hand-written, plus they don’t actually have to do it, as I already have the mortgage. So why do they do it?
This is what I think makes me angry: who gives them the right to use information provided on a mortgage application to contact me in a personal manner, a manner that is really reserved only for friends and family? Whom is this supposed to fool? Does anyone actually feel warm and fuzzy when they get a “happy birthday” from a random company they do business with? At least Starbucks gives you a free order on your birthday; I can’t even wipe my a$$ with the card.
The lender lends me a fair sum of money, which I pay back with interest over a couple of decades. Why do they have to appropriate my personal celebration in a manner that mimics yet only mocks actual personal connections?
Instead, they could send an honest card on the anniversary of signing the mortgage, which would say:
As we watch one more year pass
Yes, we still own your sorry a$$.
xykademiqz 
Happy belated birthday!
I get a birthday card from my optician with a 10% discount voucher. I always thought that was very nice and actually used the voucher a couple of times when my optometrist appointmen coincided with the time around my birthday. Oh and Lufthansa used to send a birthday email with a 20 EUR voucher. There are also companies sending xmas cards, but I just throw those in paper recycling as soon as I see what they are.
I suppose there are some very lonely people in the world who really appreciate such a gesture and will solidify their business. Though with a Mortgage lender? I don’t really get it. It’s not like you meet with her or him a couple times a year. Makes more sense for someone like anonP says – an optometrist or dentist or something…
I just recently got an NSF grant and now got a note from an investment firm – hand written- saying basically “congratulations on your grant.” Subtle implication is that if one has a NSF grant you’ll be made of money that you can trust them with, I guess. I found it quite creepy, although who wins NSF grants is public information.