Mail

[bd]

Do any of you get phenomenally more junk mail than actual meaningful mail like I do?

I will pick up the mail and go straight to the trash can. By the time I'm done I may have one or two pieces out of a dozen or more that I actually look at. The rest is trashed unopened and sight unseen.

This is a terrible waste of resources. I try to recycle what I can. I shred a lot of the plain paper stuff and use the shreds for composting. Our local government doesn't make recycling a high priority so it's not real convenient.

I never have and never will sign up for a credit card from a mail solicitation. It seems like the CC companies would get the message after all these years.

It just bugs me to see all the waste.

bd (bugged I tell you, I'm bugged!)

[aiformula]

used to use it to start fires when I lived w/ the folks.

No fireplace at my place unfortunately.

[BeardXXXd]

same thing here
order one rubber pu$$y and your screw'd for life..

actually there is something you can do.. if everyone did this. junk mail would stop.

-junk mail usually have a postage paid return envelope in them.
- seal the empty evnelope and mail it.
(just make sure there is not some kind of tracking or account number on the evelope)

i always wanted to make an email and send it out and make it around the world so everyone would put an end to junk mail... but me sending it out would not help the junk email.. soo

[WyoBob]

I always send back stuff that has a prepaid envelope. But, I stick other company's junk mail in the envelope just to mess with their minds. And, I really pack it in. If you could obtain thin lead foil and put it in an envelope, I imagine the company would have to pay the "postage due".

I think this is good for the country. It helps the USPS generate revenue and postpones future hikes in postage. It's the least you can do if you're a patriotic American

WyoBob

[Delija]

The post office seems to have wised up a little. The place I live now (a townhouse with a central mailbox hut) has a nice trash receptacle right by the boxes, so everyone can throw out the junk mail (and I suppose re-cycle it) without having to take it home.

Junk mail is a real problem for us. But maybe it supports the USPS, which can use all the help it can get.

I get more junk e-mail than I do paper junk mail though....and THAT is a real pain. I get attachments that generate virus warnings from both Norton and AVG. (But I don't need anything to tell me not to open attachements from stangers...who usually can't seem to express themselves in English very well:

..."Hi. please to try game you like it I think. Much thanking."

Years ago I had AOL..it was incredible how much junk mail I got. And really a ton of triple XXX porn stuff to my three teenage kids....even with the AOL "blocking software" enabled. It was worse than horrible.

Things are not as bad with the cable system I use now (and DSL before), but still pretty bad.

I really should give Google's "GMail" a shot. I'm just not real comfortable with web based systems (I have Hotmail and Yahoo mail and find them worthless). However it can come in handy when traveling. But now I believe all the DSL and Cable ISPs have a way to access your mail on the web if you are not at your computer.

I believe you can use Outlook or any other real mail programs to manage Gmail accounts. Guess I'll find out. I have about 200 invitations to open new accounts (if anyone wants one, let me know by pm, and I will hook you up).

Peace,
D.

[dolanp]

Whenever I get that stuff I open it up and take out the prepaid envelope. Then I get a piece of notebook paper and shortly explain to them that I want to be removed from their database and taken off of their mailing list.

The mailings have pretty much stopped, believe it or not.

[Delija]

Originally Posted by dolanp

Whenever I get that stuff I open it up and take out the prepaid envelope. Then I get a piece of notebook paper and shortly explain to them that I want to be removed from their database and taken off of their mailing list.

The mailings have pretty much stopped, believe it or not.

I have heard two sides to this approach...mostly with email. It may work better with regular mail since someone has to pay for delivery. Email is free (despite the urban legends we read about how the government going to charge us all for every email we send).

Many unsolicited emails have a place to check if you don't want to get more junk emails from the senders. But I have been told by a guy that's pretty savvy in this kind of stuff that what that really does is confirm that your address is a valid address.

So maybe XYZ Corp. won't send you any more junk email if you check their "remove me" box, but they can sell the address as a valid address to the list companies (and we are ALL on the list companies lists somehow). Much of the spam email is just generated at random....huge amounts never get delivered. When someone tells the company to stop sending junk email.....they know for sure someone got it and opened it, and it's a "live" account.

Confused? Yeah, me too.

Peace,
D.

[dolanp]

That makes sense for email, but if you are getting stuff addressed to you at your address then you are already in their confirmed database of valid addresses. Your info is bought and sold by CC companies every day so they already have it, which is why you get the crap in the first place.

[Darkmann]

Beard, that had me rolling.

Heres what I do to combat the outlandish amount of junk I get in the mail. I save the 'Business Reply' envelopes that come with a lot of stuff. Then I wait till i have a substantial amount of coupons, applications, flyers and all of that and then I stuff the hell out of those little envelopes with the junk and send them back. I bet it is totally annoying and probably illegal but it gives me a sense of petty satisfaction to make sure that junk goes 'full-circle'.

I have gotten an application from Providian everyday for the last week and a half. I hope they can use my Pizza coupons.

[Meta4]

Originally Posted by Darkmann

I hope they can use my Pizza coupons.

Hey, I can use your pizza coupons! Send 'em my way!

I seem to remember reading a story a few months back about some guy wiping his bum with some kind of junk mail and sending it back. I seem to remember him getting caught and slapped with some stiff fines (or even jail?) for sanitation violations.

-JAmes