So I'm reading today's "For Better or for Worse" comic strip (see here) and it must be just me, but I have very little problem with junk mail.

Unlike telemarketing phone calls, you can review junk mail when you feel like. The amount of time to sort the crud from the good stuff is far quicker than hanging up on one of the drones who has a canned phrase to stop your "no thank you".

The stuff you want to get rid of becomes fine paper for lighting a fire in your fireplace, or recycles easily. It helps keep the post office profitable. It seems far less intrusive in my life than chewing gum on the sidewalk.

If junk mail is the biggest problem you have in your life (or even something worth complaining about), then you must have a pretty good life overall.




Sorry. Return to your more important discussions. Didn't mean to interrupt.

I too shred any postal item that has my name on it and deemed junk mail.

Quoting VibroCount:

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So I'm reading today's "For Better or for Worse" comic strip (see here) and it must be just me, but I have very little problem with junk mail.

Unlike telemarketing phone calls, you can review junk mail when you feel like. The amount of time to sort the crud from the good stuff is far quicker than hanging up on one of the drones who has a canned phrase to stop your "no thank you".

The stuff you want to get rid of becomes fine paper for lighting a fire in your fireplace, or recycles easily. It helps keep the post office profitable. It seems far less intrusive in my life than chewing gum on the sidewalk.

If junk mail is the biggest problem you have in your life (or even something worth complaining about), then you must have a pretty good life overall.




Sorry. Return to your more important discussions. Didn't mean to interrupt.

Junk mail may not be a problem to you but I live in a apartment complex and we're provided with a tiny mailbox. Every freak'n day the postman jams my little box full of crap junk mail and my legitament mail ends up folded, torn, spindled and mutilated. Our small dumpster, which isn't a recycle bin by the way, gets filled up with this crap every week which ends up in our landfills. I went on a long weekend once, and when I got back there was a notice in my box, along with all the crap, that my box was full and that the rest of my mail could be picked up at the post office. I went to the post office to collect the rest of my mail and what do you suppose it was? MORE JUNK CRAP!

Sorry. Return to your more important discussions. Didn't mean to interrupt .

Quoting VibroCount:

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Quoting Lord Of The Sith:

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... To make things worse identity thieves often use information found in unshredded  junk mail in order to steal information for identities. ...

In order to send you junk mail, either no identity of yours is provided (occupant mail) or your information is already in the public domain and available to anyone. This is a red herring and not worthy of consideration.

Does no one have any recycling facilities available whatsoever? I really don't think Sacramento is that progressive...

I just find the distraction of junk mail is of very little concern to me. I can sort it at my leisure (rather than being interrupted by telemarketers) and the fuss about it seems overblown compared to my life's other not-so-petty annoyances. I guess this is, for others, a huge disruption in their lives. Live and learn.

Actually my statement is NOT a red herring.  Identity thieves are not so much interested in the information as they were the "Pre-Approved" credit card offer.  They would steal the offer, change the address info and have the card sent somewhere else.  Then an account was created and used at the will of the thief.

I like putting all the blank/empty forms into the enclosed  self address envelope and mailing it back to them..   

If enough people did this  it would cost them a fortune in round trip postal fares and nothing in return for them.. 

Quoting VibroCount:

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Still a red herring -- anyone can opt out of all pre-approved credit offers very quickly, have it last for two years and renew it at any time for another two years, indefinitely. Thus, you can never receive any of these, leaving you nothing to highjack...

The pre-approved credit offers come from info from the three credit agencies, each of whom, separately or in concert, will stop all use of your information to anyone you have not yet approved access of it. If you are concerned, I offer you this site to aid the relief of your fears.

It's certainly better than complaining about it.

Under the information I was given it was in no way a red herring.  I had never heard of the site you game and I thank you for it.  I ask my postman about once a month if there is a way to opt out of junk mail and I always get the same answer,  "Sorry the postal service makes too much on this stuff, there is no way to shut it off at the source."  I hope the site you give me works, I just signed up.  So Cliff, have a green on me, for the helpful info.

Quoting Dr. Killpatient:

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Want junk mail with your name on it offering you loan after loan?  Buy a house.

Yeah, nothing makes people want to loan you money more than someone else thinking you're worth trusting...

Quoting VibroCount:

Quote:
Quoting Lord Of The Sith:

Quote:
... To make things worse identity thieves often use information found in unshredded  junk mail in order to steal information for identities. ...

In order to send you junk mail, either no identity of yours is provided (occupant mail) or your information is already in the public domain and available to anyone. This is a red herring and not worthy of consideration.

Does no one have any recycling facilities available whatsoever? I really don't think Sacramento is that progressive...

I just find the distraction of junk mail is of very little concern to me. I can sort it at my leisure (rather than being interrupted by telemarketers) and the fuss about it seems overblown compared to my life's other not-so-petty annoyances. I guess this is, for others, a huge disruption in their lives. Live and learn.

Actually, the recycling industry has done TOO good a job!  A large percentage of cities and towns require you to separate colored glass, cans, and plastic bottles into one pile, newspapers and magazines into another, and regular trash into a third.  After 10-15 years of this, many areas can no longer keep up with the quantity of stuff that needs to be processed, and it ends up going into the general landfill anyway.  Once again, government proves that it isn't the solution to the problem.  E-mail spam is just the electronic equivalent of this.  When the government implemented opt-out and opt-in solutions for e-mail, the amount of crap I get each day went up by several orders of magnitude.  On average, for every legit email I get, another 50-75 gets zapped by my mail client or myself.