SWAFMAN
02-12-2002, 08:30 PM
I recently received an email that described an elegantly simple tactic to combat junk snail mail. I've started doing it, and it takes such little time with a such a big payoff in amusement that I want to share it with you all, and urge you all join me in this practice and in spreading the word to others.
Many, if not most junk mail contains a Business Reply Envelope that guarantees return postage when the envelope is mailed back to the sending business. All you have to do is take the junk mail from one company directly out of its envelope and put it straight into the business reply envelope of another company, removing only the portions containing your name, then place it in your outgoing mail.
Like I said, it's simple, elegant, and if enough people start doing it, maybe we can force the junk mailers to rethink their wasteful ways.
And before you fire up your keyboard for some whine-a-thon about how junk mail revenues help keep the rates lower for our first-class postage, let me say: BITE ME, DOUGHBOY!!! First class rates have gone up unacceptably with or without the postal service's other revenue streams. Their service sucks. If they can't, through improved management, find a way to offer better service than they currently provide at the level of income they currently bring in then they deserve to go the way of the dinosaurs and we can just move entirely to e-mail for FREE communication. If all companies could completely phase-out the cost they spend on snail mail for billing and apply that budget to electronic bill payment, any remaining service fee to consumers to electronically pay their bills could be less then what we now pay for a single first class postage stamp. People without computers could pay their bills at the public library's computer, or a touch-tone phone automated bill-paying system could be setup for those people and for shut-ins.
[I'm dismounting my soapbox now.....]
Many, if not most junk mail contains a Business Reply Envelope that guarantees return postage when the envelope is mailed back to the sending business. All you have to do is take the junk mail from one company directly out of its envelope and put it straight into the business reply envelope of another company, removing only the portions containing your name, then place it in your outgoing mail.
Like I said, it's simple, elegant, and if enough people start doing it, maybe we can force the junk mailers to rethink their wasteful ways.
And before you fire up your keyboard for some whine-a-thon about how junk mail revenues help keep the rates lower for our first-class postage, let me say: BITE ME, DOUGHBOY!!! First class rates have gone up unacceptably with or without the postal service's other revenue streams. Their service sucks. If they can't, through improved management, find a way to offer better service than they currently provide at the level of income they currently bring in then they deserve to go the way of the dinosaurs and we can just move entirely to e-mail for FREE communication. If all companies could completely phase-out the cost they spend on snail mail for billing and apply that budget to electronic bill payment, any remaining service fee to consumers to electronically pay their bills could be less then what we now pay for a single first class postage stamp. People without computers could pay their bills at the public library's computer, or a touch-tone phone automated bill-paying system could be setup for those people and for shut-ins.
[I'm dismounting my soapbox now.....]