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!

Comments

NOT TRUE!

[Anonymous Coward]

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

MAIL PREFERENCE SERVICE -- mod this way up PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

Returning business-reply envelopes will NOT get you significantly less junk mail -- the recipients have no incentive to take you off any lists but their own.

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:

• MAIL PREFERENCE SERVICE
• 
  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!

Going postal

[GeorgeH]

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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Re:don't overload, they'll just get chucked

[FFFish]

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.

--

Re:You're just inconveniencing the Post Office

[Mr. X]

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?

Re:You're just inconveniencing the Post Office

[MemRaven]

When I used to work for an insurance company, and I dealt with a lot of mail (bill payments from customers, not junk mail responses), that wasn't quite true. According to the office manager, we paid a license to be able to do Business Reply mail. But we got a bill every month from the postal service with the actual amount of things which were returned.

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.

Re:You're just inconveniencing the Post Office

[intuition]

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.

Give it a rest

[peteshaw]

I for one enjoy getting junk mail.

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

Glue on the fold

[beebware]

First either find a glue that stays 'tacky' over long period of times, or get a little plastic bag, put glue in it, and seal it.

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.

A Useless Tactic

[shankster]

My current job involves handling mailings and donations for a non-profit organization in San Francisco, CA. We send out lots of direct mail (too much, IMO), and we get lots of people sending it back angrily and even some of them use tactics described in this article.

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

Re:MAIL PREFERENCE SERVICE -- mod this way up PLEA

[jhein]

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:

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. asp

"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!

Misguided protest

[jabber01]

Think for a second. Who actually pays postage on those 'postage paid' envelopes?

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