Snail-mail spam

re: Snail-mail spam

Jo Ann — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 21:21:04 GMT

Just today I received a piece of mail that was disquised as my 1040 form. Had the same tear off sides, privacy paper, and, it had 1040 in big black letters on the outside. It also said personal and confidential. I didn't think it was my actual 1040 because they had my address slightly wrong but I really couldn't just toss it, I was obligated to open this official piece of mail. On the inside was a solicitation from a debt counseling organization. Here's what I wonder, who would ever do business with a company who has to resort to such underhanded and sneaky tactics to get your attention?
Not me.

Slowing and Stopping email viruses in Exchange

Eileen Brown's WebLog — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:47:00 GMT

re: Snail-mail spam

Larry Anderson — Sun, 07 Nov 2004 22:52:00 GMT

I once read that if they were to stop sending bulk snail mail (as spam is called when the letterman delivers it), that our stamps would triple in cost, as people are paying money to send us that 'junk'. They of course get a discount, but since the Post Office is making money on the junk mail and the consumer is saving money, no one really complains.

However, I could rent a server for 50 bucks a month, put some freeware software on it and send 3 million spams in a few hours. Spam won't be going away until ever. We can pass all sort of state laws and country laws, but then the spammers will just go to some small third country and do the spamming from there.

re: Snail-mail spam

Anon — Sun, 07 Nov 2004 19:49:00 GMT

I've often wondered what the legality of sending X's mail back to Y is... I've also heard that people fill out the entire forms with subtly incorrect information so as to waste more resources at the processing end.

re: Snail-mail spam

Brendan — Sun, 07 Nov 2004 19:13:00 GMT

More often than not, you can ‘fight back’ against snail-mail spam, much more maliciously than with the e variety.

The most you can do with e-mail is keep it from hitting your inbox, maybe reporting it and more often than not, letting the issue die... with snail-mail spam, it costs them money to send the ‘offer’ and costs them again for them to receive your application for said ‘offer’.

The solution often is simply mailing em back, I love the credit card ones especially, they always have a postage paid envelop inside, so, I tear the contents of the original envelop (and often it too) in half, throw em in the return, I’m even sure to leave my contact information on the original letter in the delusional hope that they’ll take a hint.

Providian for example for some reason sees fit to send me on average 1 of these offers a week... over the summer I just let em pile up on the floor, until I mailed back 20 in one sitting... now I make my weekly trip to the post office and drop what ever offers I got into the slot... and yet they still keep coming.

It’s a shame bricks are so expensive... it’d be nice to increase the return cost by increasing the letters weight beyond the normal 1st class rate.

re: Snail-mail spam

Ron Atkinson — Sun, 07 Nov 2004 16:45:00 GMT

With junk mail, the best thing to do is save it all up, and when you've got some pairs, return company x's junk to company y inside company y's envelope, and vice versa.

re: Snail-mail spam

Uwe Keim — Sun, 07 Nov 2004 06:16:00 GMT

I rather throw it away than opening. If it is an invoice, they will re-send it. The side-effect is that I have to pay my bills later :-)