Trash, DAMNED trash, and )%^&*#&$@$&*%^$! junkmail

[unixronin]

I have decided that I want junkmail to be a crime.  Conservation violation.  $1 per offense.

Each separate item mailed to each separate address to be considered a separate offense.

...Well, OK, no.  I'm not really serious about making it a crime.  But I DO want junk mail to be tariffed at a surcharged rate, not a discounted rate, and I want the US Post Office to be required to set up a means for any postal recipient to file a preference that says "Do not EVER deliver any mail to this address that is not individually addressed by name to a current resident", and then abide by it.  We just came within one semi-chance comment of losing a $450 unemployment check that got accidentally trashed because it was interleaved with a sheaf of ()%*)(@*&$(*&^()#%*&@%_)*@$^%$!! grocery-store circulars and advertising postcards.

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[rain-manpnw.livejournal.com]

Bulk mail is ALREADY charged more than cost by the USPS. First-class mail would cost even more if bulk mail didn't subsidize it.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Uh .... where are you seeing that? Google "bulk mail rate" and look at any of the first half-dozen hits. They're all either on bulkmail.com or usps.gov, and they all talk about discounted rates for bulk mail and how to qualify. If you go to the post office and mail a one-ounce first class letter, it will currently cost you 44¢. A three-ounce letter will cost you 78¢. (http://www.usps.com/prices/first-class-mail-prices.htm) But mail a thousand of them, up to 3.3 ounces, and the USPS will charge you only 23.3¢ to 27.3¢ apiece (http://bulkmail.info/rates.html). If it's tray pieces, you may pay as little as 19¢ per piece for barcoded letter-sized mail 3.3 ounces or less. That's a pretty decent discount - up to 75% off your postage cost if you're mailing ten thousand people crap they don't want.

[gah. typos...]

Bulk mail does not subsidize first class mail. First class mail subsidizes bulk mail. Half the reason the USPS is in trouble is the volume of first class and other personal mail that it makes money on is dropping precipitously, while the volume of bulk mail that it makes a loss on is not. The USPS would be out of trouble almost overnight if it raised bulk mail rates to bring them into parity with actual personal mail. Either they'd start making money on bulk mail, or the bulk mail volume would plummet and they'd stop bleeding out on it. But it'll never happen, because the Direct Marketing Association would scream bloody murder and pay off a dozen congressmen to make the USPS bend over and drop its pants again.

[fruitylips.livejournal.com]

As USPS points out, it is discounted because you're doing some of the work for them.

http://pe.usps.com/businessmail101/getstarted/bulkMail.htm

What would actually happen if Bulk Mail and First Class rates were the same is that the USPS would see costs go way up because no one would do the presorting work for them. Revenue would go up about enough to cover that and then we'd be back here talking about how USPS is dying.

USPS is in trouble because 1st class delivery is down 22% cos who in the hell uses USPS for anything important anymore? During that same period, USPS has basically stayed the same size.

What used to happen is that massive 1st class postal usage in urban areas subsidized rural delivery. The fact that USPS charges the same fee for a 1st class letter from me to go to the house next door as to my cousin up in Seward, Alaska is a big chunk of their problem.

Heck, the bulk mail rates are one of the few things that the USPS does right...they actually charge customers the rates based on what it costs them to fulfill the requested service.

[rain-manpnw.livejournal.com]

I have seven years experience coding a bulk-mailing application for a non-profit, and carefully applying the USPS pre-sort rules to minimize mailing costs.

Comparing the _prices_ charged by USPS for bulk mail to the _costs_ for delivering that mail is comparing apples and oranges.

Yes, bulk mail is charged less than first class. However, bulk mail is still charged more than it costs the USPS to process it.

Bulk mail processors do a great deal of the pre-sort for the USPS, to the point that a bulk mailer will provide it in "walk-sort" order - the very order that the carrier walks their route to deliver.

The time spent by the carrier sorting the mail into walk-sort order for their route - several hours at the post office before they even hit the street - is a major labor cost for the USPS. Having a bundle of pre-sorted bulk mail that alreadt exists in the order needed for delivery is a significant savings for them.

Hence, bulk mail subsidizes first class mail.

Bulk mailers do not want to send you stuff that just gets thrown in the trash. It's a waste of their money. They have an incentive to purge names from their lists and keep them clean.

You can contact the Direct Mail Association to have your name/address list put on a "do not send" list. A lot of bulk mailers use that list to purge their databases. You'll still get the pizza circulars and store ads, because those go to a "every household" density and it's not cost-effective to selectively purge addresses. You won't get the credit-card, insurance, and cruise-ship offers though.

If you think about it, bulk mail and spam are opposites. The costs of bulk mail are borne by the sender, so they have an incentive to prune the lists as tightly as possible to make their advertising dollar stretch.

Spam, on the other hand, puts the cost burden on the recipient, so there is actually a disincentive to prune address lists, and an incentive to make them as massive as possible, in the offhand chance that one of the scattershot amils will result in a hit.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Your points are taken.

I still wish there was something I could file at the post office, though, or a decal I could put on my mailbox as is possible in Finland, to say "Do not deliver any unaddressed bulk mail to this address."

[lebo-superman.livejournal.com]

Try this site - we use it and it's cut down on our junk-mail load a LOT:

http://www.catalogchoice.org/

Some offenders won't participate in the Catalog Choice program, but most do when the learn of it, because they'd rather not spend money trying to reach someone who doesn't want their products.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

As noted elsewhere, we already use Catalog Choice, and it has effectively eliminated mail-order catalogs and related mail addressed to previous occupants halfway back to the Mayflower. But it doesn't do a thing about store flyers addressed to OCCUPANT, RESIDENT, or POSTAL MAIL CUSTOMER.

[lebo-superman.livejournal.com]

That's weird - because it HAS reduced our flood of "occupant" etc., junk mails. By quite a bit, actually.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

In the modern era most junk mail is addressed by name anyway. Thirty years ago there was lots of stuff addressed to "OCCUPANT", but no more.

I note that the credit crunch has cut down on the number of credit-card offers I get in the mail, though.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Grocery-store and department-store circulars, which are the worst offenders, are still almost without exception addressed to OCCUPANT, RESIDENT, or POSTAL MAIL CUSTOMER.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

The grocery stores here aren't in the habit of mailing out circulars. (With grocery stores effectively being a duopoly between Shaw's/Star and Stop&Shop, maybe they don't feel a need to advertise.) However what I *do* get is the "Boston Globe Direct", which is a loosely-assembled circular full of ads for all sorts of local services. I don't even know who advertises in it because it goes straight into the recycle bin. It's loosely assembled, the bits come apart very readily, and it's a complete b*tch to remove from the mailbox because the loose flappy bits snag on the mailbox's metal seams. Furthermore it's all too easy for some vital piece of mail to get lost inside it, as you say.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

i lost a couple live paychecks that way. for 8 years :) oiy. got it back though.

some folx have these gadgets that roll the paper into logs, and they burn that. not TOO clean but cleaner these days, and it works well. heck, people with those SIGN UP for junk mail ;)

i've asked my mailman about the idea of putting everything into a nearby "delivery bucket", and he says that by law, since someone paid for it to be delivered, it has to be, and they can't NOT do it.

about the only way to really knock it off, is to have important things sent to a PO BOX, and assume everything in the driveway mailbox is trash - i don't think you can get away with NOT having a mailbox. drat.

#

[luxobscura.livejournal.com]

yeah, wow, thanks for reigniting my paranoia about that. I can't even begin to calculate how much time I've spent shaking out and leafing through those damned newsprint circulars to make sure something real isn't in there.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I understand your frustration. Unlike electronic spam, marketers actually pay for USPS deliveries. (If you get truly ticked, tape a postage paid return card to a brick.)

If someone paid real money, I figure I can look through it as it gets tossed. It only takes a few minutes. A clear indication is if the name is wrong or misspelled. Another instisort is something addressed to me as 'Ms.', sorry, I prefer Mister, something they would know if they ever met me. I will touch everything, but only once. Sometimes, it pays to go through it all.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The problem was it ended up in between the sheets of one of the grocery-store circulars.


Look, you want to have a broadsheet listing your current specials? Fine, put a stack by the door, and I can pick one up as I come in if I want to. Put a recycling bin next to the exit so I can toss it when I'm done with it, too. Don't make me choose between taking it home or dropping it on the floor. But if I wasn't planning on coming to your store this week anyway, I'm not going to change my mind because you have iceberg lettuce on special at 79¢/lb.