A Spam Box For Postal Mail
- 7
- Add a Comment
Really do not see this as all that revolutionary, but why in the world has no one out there come up with the idea of a spam folder for postal mail? I mean, it’s certainly not like it is not needed! Just look at all of the crap coming to us in our mail boxes these days.
So I ask again, being as there is no means of opting out junk mail outside of credit card offers, why not just skip the middle man and have offers that are not marked a certain way placed into another receptacle? Perhaps this is not really practical, but it sure beats sorting through the junk mail. That and it has worked well enough with our email accounts, might as well give it a try with our postal mail as well.
What is stopping this from working? Simple - easy classification of incoming postal mail. Unless this can be made next to automatic for the postal services of the world, it is unlikely we will ever have any real headway in this area. And so we are apparently left to fend for ourselves in this area.
7 Comments
Mark Hill
August 13th, 2008
at 5:22am
> …there is no means of opting out junk mail outside of credit card offers…
Not true, Matt! My wife has done it with astounding success. Unlike with email spam, where the “click here to opt out” often does the reverse (since it verifies to the spammer that their spam got through), postal “spammers” actually honor your request if you take the time to call them. It took weeks, but my wife called about 150 merchants and asked them to stop sending catalogs. They really stopped! And the benefit has lasted for over a year. Our mailbox that used to lean under the weight of catalogs now contains just a handful of mainly first class mail each day.
AG
August 13th, 2008
at 5:30am
If I remember correctly a postman was fired back in the 70’s for doing exactly that.
AG
Eric Solash
August 13th, 2008
at 7:16am
You have a good idea, but you’ve lost sight of the biggest difference ‘tween mail and email. The carrier earns money delivering mail (postal service) not so with email. Why would anyone stop delivering a money making product? A better idea would be to lobby for an increase in the cost to the sender of “advertising” mail, to the level of regular mail. Then the cost of the unwanted mail would keep companies from blanketing your mailbox.
Sid Gilbert
August 13th, 2008
at 8:51am
Another thing that keeps this from working is the fact that the post office charges for delivery. If I were sending bulk mail I would insist that since I am paying for delivery that it be delivered in a manner that makes it accessible to my potential customers. I agree that snail mail spam is a big problem, and maybe they could deliver anything sent via bulk rates to a different box, but I think the entire industry that uses email would get up in arms about it.
Sid Gilbert
August 13th, 2008
at 8:53am
edit: I meant snail mail, not email in the last line. Sorry.
BK
August 13th, 2008
at 8:10pm
Just take the prepaid mail envelopes that come in the credit card offers and what ever else and put stuff from other spam mail in it. Most envelopes from these companies have tracking # on them.
It will cost them money for you to send it back with no application
They will remove you from the list
Andy
August 14th, 2008
at 4:16pm
Heh, heh :-) Way ahead of you Matt. I put a trash can under the mailbox. We do a QuickSort before carrying the mail in…