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Stuffing Junkmail Postage-Paid Envelopes?
Yesterday I mentioned that I've started returning the postage paid envelopes that come in most junkmail... except I returned them emptya as my personal little statement against the waste in time and resources that they are causing. Many readers emailed to tell me that I only had it half right: I should be weighting the envelopes down and forcing the junk mailer to pay postage on my little care packages. Have others tried this? What works? Most readers had suggestions ranging from sending each junkmailer the contents of a different junk mailers envelope to filling the envelope with shreddings from your crosscut paper shredder. Of course my personal favorite was the guy suggested a few pieces of sheet metal). Take a stand against junk mail! Sorry Mr. Postal Worker!
A litle regulation here, a little regulation there. Each tiny step to more government regulation is another foot down the path to pure socialism. If you oppose socialism, as I do, then anything which leans society to that eventual direction is something that I will oppose. While irritating, it takes me all of 5-10 seconds to sort my mail and throw the junk mail in the trash. Hardly worth freeing up 10 seconds of my life a day just to allow the government to control one more thing.
I think this quote is appropriate:
"The big question to ask about proposals for new laws and policies is not whether they sound reasonable, but what damage they can do when they are used unreasonably."
-Thomas Sowell
Let me be the 597th person to say:
Taco, you are a fucking idiot.
If you want no junk mail, sign up for the "no junk mail" list run by the Direct Marketing Association. This will have effects.
Sending back shit in envelopes just raises the prices on goods those companies sell, which are the goods you have to buy. Most junk mail comes from companies you do business with in some way - your bank, your credit card company, computer companies, etc. It does not make the companies lose money, it just makes you and anyone who does business with them lose money.
I suppose next you will throw another temper tantrum and decide that since local calls are free and you don't like your phone company, you'll attempt to screw them by calling your 2nd line with your 1st and leaving the line open and unattended all day.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
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Of course, Abbie Hoffman suggested pasting bircks to business reply cards in his seminal work Steal This Book. But to kill too birds with one stone, try gluing the silly AOL CDs to them and then drop them in a blue postal box.
In most developed countries, no one opens a bunch of paper bills, writes paper checks, puts them in envelopes, and mails them. Almost all payments are handled electronically. The US is far behind Europe in this regard.
When you choose to enlist as a foot soldier, don't complain when the enemy decides to use its tanks.
So long as it is economically viable for the junk mailers to send out the stuff, so long as they're at least getting something out of it, then they will continue to do so.
So, if I can make your job so bad that you quit and no one else will take it, the jer^H^H^H"powers-that-be" will have to open their own mail. This will most likely be the point that it is no longer viable economically.
Get this straight. I wish to make your job as difficult as possible. I wish to make the telemarketer's job as difficult as possible. I wish to make the spammer's job as difficult as possible. Eventually, no one will take these jobs, and the world will be the better for it. These tactics are not the most effective tool, but it is the only way in which I can get you all to leave me alone.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
One of my coworkers said his grandfather used to send in the card saying 'Please don't mail me again and take me off your list.' and include half a cup of chili or jello or porriage. And because the card is covered in crap, they'd always have to enter it in by hand. He got quite a few calls back from people, and would just play senile from there.
'But I thought you boys could use a nice bowl of chili!'
--
Gonzo Granzeau
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
Remove one little regulation here, a little regulation there. Each tiny step to less government regulation is another foot down the path to pure anarchy. If you oppose total anarchy, as I do, then anything which leans society to that eventual direction is something that I will oppose.
Hey here is an idea why not judge each regulation on it's merits? Would that be too hard to deal with in your ideology?
War is necrophilia.
- Filling in fake information then paying whatever they are asking for in Monopoly Money.
- Send them Polaroids of yourself, ask them to write back.
- Two Words: AOL Discs
;)
- Scrawl "Help Me" on a post-it note, cover in ketsup, mail it.
I'm sure you guys have some good ones too....--The space between my ears was intentionally left blank--
Yeah, that will appease him when his fallen arches and aching back makes him come after you with an AK-47.
Why can't the US drop it's paranoid fear of government and implement such a system? It's not as though it will bring socialism crashing down on your head, is it? Is it?
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
THIS IS NOT TRUE!
At least, not in the US! True, it's a flat fee per envelope TO MAIL OUT (from the company) but there's also a running account between the company and the postal service for returned envelopes!
Look in the corner where the stamp would be and you'll see the account number I'm talking about!
I used to work in accounts payable for a large organization in LA that did tens of thousands of these per week - and I remember writing the check to the US Postal service for the BRE's (Bulk Return Envelopes) as well as to Pitney Bowes for the original letters mailed OUT.
-Ben
However, you can easily get yourself taken off the VAST majority of snail-mail lists with a single postcard to the Mail Preference Service. I have tried this from mutiple addresses and it works dramatically well. But it takes a month or two to kick in.
If you really care about getting less junk, simply send a postcard to:
P. O. BOX 9008
FARMINGDALE, NY 11735
One of the reasons this works so well is that the service is run for the Direct Marketing Association by ADP, the company that does more payroll than any other. The remove-list is offered for free to anyone who asks for it, all because the service is mandated and enforced my law in some fairly large municipalities and a few states.
Please mod this way up!
I found http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volum e6/v6i4/postal-6-4.html on Memepool. It details just what you can get away with when (ab)using the USPS.
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Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
You can remove your name from the lists.
A good 90% of mass-marketing companies belong to the Direct Marketing Association. The DMA has an opt-out list, which its members must abide by.
PLEASE!! Go to these web pages and learn how to do it:
[Privacy Council Opt-Out Page]
Read the entire page. There are links to your DMV, to credit bureaus, to the DMA... everyone important.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Not true at all.. My reply envelopes from several organizations have a suggestion to affix a stamp to them, to save the organization money, instead of not using a stamp and having the organization pay the postage when they recieve the envelope. Why would they do this if it didn't change what they paid?
So you're half right. There is a cost just to be allowed to spam you with those envelopes. But it does cost the company per-envelope.
I can't remember if we got charged for the actual weight.
You couldnt be more wrong... You are charged by the post office when the mail is returned.
From the Domestic Mail Manual available at http://pe.usps.gov
S-58 3.0 p. 914 DMM issue 56
"Each piece of returned BRM is charged the applicable single-piece First-Class or Priority Mail postage. Cards must meet the standards in C100 to qualify for card rate postage. Any card larger than those dimensions is charged the applicable First-Class Mail letter rated. For Priority Mail over 5 pounds if the zone cannot be determined from a return address or cancellation, then the permit holder is charged zone 4 postage for the weight of the piece.
Furthermore, for all you people "strap a brick to the BRM and throw it in a mail box... yeah that will get them"
p. 913 S922 1.6
BRM may not be used for any purpose other than that intended by the permit holder, even if postage is affixed. In cases where a BRM card or letter is used improperly as a label, the USPS treats the item as waste.
Please moderate this up, and that other idiot dowm.
There is an important difference between junk mail and spam, and that it that is that junk mail costs the sender real physical dollars. The stuff you recieve in the mail are mostly legitimate. Its easy to filter out. It only takes time if you let it. Finally, the costs of junk mail is used by the USPS to subsidize acutual postage.
Would nay of you be willing to pay 75 cents for a stamp in order to get no junk mail? This is a real dollar issue, and I have no problem with junk mail at all. I find that the best credit card offers are junk mailed to me. I get menus to my local chinese restaurants. Its a good thing.
Contrast this with SPAM, or Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (UCE). This costs the sender nothing. It is frequently fraudulent, illegal, or 'scammy'. Some garbage about buying a stock or checking out a web page. The problem with the SPAM is that it doesn't cost anything! I wish to god that there was someway I could stuff a brick in a return envelope to every SPAMMER out there, but I can't so I make due with filters.
I am not aware of the technology required, but it seems to me the only real way to eliminated SPAM is to develop some sort of universal validated return address. Like caller-id, it would be optional, and like caller-id, you could block messages from those who don't disclose a valid return address.
But please don't terrorize those junk mailers, they are an annoyance that causes more good than harm.
--Pete
'he felt himself splitting into two halfs, one part soft, one part hard, one part warm, and one part cold, one part trembling, and one part not trembling, each half grinding against the other."--Ray Bradbury
www.avacal.com -- the home page of pete shaw
Now stick that on the inside of the envelope, and fold the top over - the idea being that when the junkmailers automatic enveloper-cutter comes across it, the contents of the envelope literally gums up the works.
If you put on the back, 'Warning contains glue - please remove me from ALL mailing lists', it'll also prompt them to actually read the envelopes before putting them in their systems. You did warn them, so you can't be held responsible, and you also asked to be removed from the mailing list as well...
Richy C.
While it is annoying for us to have to deal with that, the powers that be 'round here still send out the same volume of mail - no, they've actually INCREASED the volume of mail - as before. We who actually open the mail and read the complaints feel your pain, but there isn't much we can do except put them in a file and try in vain to convince the people in charge that their mail campaign is a disastrous failure.
So long as it is economically viable for the junk mailers to send out the stuff, so long as they're at least getting something out of it, then they will continue to do so. And the sheer amount of mail, through the USPS or through your e-mail, is a testament to the basic fact that such mailings are, against all sense, effective.
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
-John Lennon
If you want to get off the Credit Reporters' lists, (and stop being "Pre Approved for this new fancy credit card!") here's the number for Trans Union:
. asp
1-888-5OPT-OUT
Call them, then listen to the options:
"Press 1 to be removed from marketing lists for 2 years"
(forgot what 2 was)
"Press 3 to be removed from marketing lists *permanently*"
Isn't it funny how they hide the "permanent" option at the end?
From http://www.transunion.com/General/MarketingOptOut
"If you want your name and address removed from all mailing lists offered by the main consumer credit reporting agencies: Trans Union, Experian, Equifax and Innovis, call 888-5OPTOUT (888-567-8688), or write to the following address:
Trans Union LLC's Name Removal Option
P.O. Box 97328
Jackson, MS 39288-7328
Requests should include the following information:
First, middle, and last names (including Jr., Sr., III)
Current address
Previous address (if you've moved in the last six months)
Social Security Number
Date of birth
Signature
If you opt-out, you will no longer appear on direct marketing lists offered by these four credit reporting agencies. However, you may continue to receive commercial mailings based on lists from other sources. "
If you select the "permanent" option, they will send you a form to sign and return. This has the benefit of *proving* you requested privacy, and makes it much easier to take them to court if they happen to "forget" what your preferences were.
Happy Hunting!
Most junk mail I get comes from companies with which I do business in some way.. Usually, it's credit card companies or software companies of some kind.
The junk mail is paid for in my fees, and in the price of my software.
Sending back 'postage paid' envelopes is the same sort of near-sighted temper tantrum as openning the windows in your apartment and turning up the heat - because it's 'included' in your rent. It's the same as putting a telemarketter on hold, rather than just hanging up. It's like leaving your TV on all day, because you pay for cable 24/7, but can't be there to watch it.
If you want to protest, call the company, or at least include a letter asking them to switch to a 'solicited mailings only' scheme. Otherwise you're just wasting your own (and others' like you) money.
The REAL jabber has the /. user id: 13196
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life