Pay to stop bulk mailing.

[Trekker4747]

Right now as it stands in the US mail is free it costs nothing to be a part of it. Now, sure, it costs to send something but overall this cost is fairly small for ordinary things like letters, bills, etc.

Mail is so cheap due to in large part bulk mailing, ads and such that are sent out by companies by the thousands that help to fund the post office, struggling in these days to stay afloat when social contact and bill paying is being done on-line. But, of course, bulk mailing is a pain in the ass.

I get one bill in the mail every month that I have to pay for by check because there's no automatic deduct available the rest of my mail is mostly trash.

So would you, dear reader, be willing to pay a small fee to the Post Office every month to opt-out of bulk mailings? Say the fee was something like $10-$20 a month, or $150 a year or something. For that price any piece of mail addressed to "Postal Patron", "Our Neighbor", "Valued Customer", etc. doesn't go in your box to ensure this you're given a sticker or some-kind-of mark/trinket you place on/in your mailbox to let the postman know you're in the program. (An occasional check by the post-man ensures that the medallion is current/belongs to the address it's being displayed at.)

 

[Miss Chicken]

I think you would find that the legislature would have to be passed before this could be done. I know in Australia, and most likely in the USA, if someone pays for postage - including postage delivered as "To the Householder" "Postal Patron" etc it would be illegal for the post office not to deliver it. There is no way theay the post office on their own could bring in a scheme for people to opt-out as the primary client is the person who paid the postage not the person who recieves it.

In Australia we do have a system that stops junk mail (i.e. that which is not delivered by Australian post) from being delivered. All I need is to have a NO JUNK MAIL sign on my letter box.

 

[Star Wolf]

Your friendly neighborhood letter carrier on board. So you are asking people to pay me not to receive mail just so the public service function of the Postal Service, the delivery of election materials, social security checks and Netflix DVDs can be delivered at a price that UPS and FedEx can only drool at?

 

[Star Wolf]

I think you would find that the legislature would have to be passed before this could be done. I know in Australia, and most likely in the USA, if someone pays for postage - including postage delivered as "To the Householder" "Postal Patron" etc it would be illegal for the post office not to deliver it. There is no way theay the post office on their own could bring in a scheme for people to opt-out as the primary client is the person who paid the postage not the person who recieves it.

In Australia we do have a system that stops junk mail (i.e. that which is not delivered by Australian post) from being delivered. All I need is to have a NO JUNK MAIL sign on my letter box.

I am fairly unique in that I have actually seen about 20 letter carriers put up for removal for not delivering the newspaper type ads once known as ADVO and now as Red Plum after mass raids at the two stations I have worked at. It hit the postal press that the Inspector General was hitting a district a year and we were first. Or at least first in the internet age so I put the word out. Most other ads go out with no problem because they are easier to physically handle and our customers don't fight as much with us because we delivered a catalog as they do when deliver a break apart newspaper without stories.

As of now the service is trying to add a new service so that we can take bulk advertising mail without any address information just like we do congressional franked mail and local government info pamphlets. Of course without address information on those ads it will be even harder for the Inspector General to prove a case of "stealing" mail then they had when they could just look at the address of the stuff that wasn't delivered.

 

[Maestro]

Trekker, just buy a firepit, stockpile the heinous bulk mailings, and then use them to start your summer outdoor bonfires.

 

[JiNX-01]

Since it doesn't cost me anything to toss junk mail, I can't picture myself paying not to have it delivered it.

 

[Trekker4747]

Your friendly neighborhood letter carrier on board. So you are asking people to pay me not to receive mail just so the public service function of the Postal Service, the delivery of election materials, social security checks and Netflix DVDs can be delivered at a price that UPS and FedEx can only drool at?

Eh, I'd argue that bulk mail isn't addressed to me therefore there'd be no harm in me not getting it. Like I said I get one piece of mail a month that I need. There's three pieces of mail I need that's delivered over the course of the year (various bills like insurance, car title, stuff that doesn't come every month) my mailbox hut is also on the other side of the complex which means I have to make a special trip over there just to get my mail. Or, rather, empty my mailbox and dump a bunch of stuff into the trash. Considering the volume of ads/bulk mail I get I have to do this pretty much every other day to prevent the tiny mailbox from being crammed or getting a letter saying I now have to make a trip to the post-office to retrieve my mail.

 

[Star Wolf]

I just don't get why you want to subsidize the delivery of Netflix when the advertising industry has been doing it for 40 years?

Yes I know Netflix wasn't the original end user.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I just toss the junk mail in the recycle bin. No harm, no foul.

 

[DonIago]

Heck, I keep a recycle bin directly opposite my mailbox for expressly that purpose. Well, also so I can flip it over and UPS/FedEx can leave packages under it if I'm expecting any.

 

[Star Wolf]

Your friendly neighborhood letter carrier on board. So you are asking people to pay me not to receive mail just so the public service function of the Postal Service, the delivery of election materials, social security checks and Netflix DVDs can be delivered at a price that UPS and FedEx can only drool at?

Eh, I'd argue that bulk mail isn't addressed to me therefore there'd be no harm in me not getting it. Like I said I get one piece of mail a month that I need. There's three pieces of mail I need that's delivered over the course of the year (various bills like insurance, car title, stuff that doesn't come every month) my mailbox hut is also on the other side of the complex which means I have to make a special trip over there just to get my mail. Or, rather, empty my mailbox and dump a bunch of stuff into the trash. Considering the volume of ads/bulk mail I get I have to do this pretty much every other day to prevent the tiny mailbox from being crammed or getting a letter saying I now have to make a trip to the post-office to retrieve my mail.

The person paying, the advertiser is selling to its customers that everybody in a geographical area or some other criteria is having their advertisement pass by your eyeballs. If I don't drop it mixed in with that one bill you are looking for then the local pizza restaurant doesn't by an advertisement from them. In which case there is no advertiser to pay me so when it comes time to mail out Census questioners, Social Security checks for people who have not and can not adjust to online banking, absentee ballots..... there is no system in place able to do the job for pennies a piece and tax income must be used to cover the cost. Exactly why do you want to pay $$ a month when Mr. Advertiser is picking up the subsidy for you?

 

[Shatnertage]

Star Wolf seems to know what he's talking about, and definitely knows more about the subject than me. I'm voting no.

On the other hand, there is a direct mailing that I'd like to get out of. I have cable TV and my Internet service through Cox Communications. Every week, I get at least 3-4 pieces of direct mail from them (my name and info, not "addressee") asking me to sign up for...cable TV and Internet service, and to add home phone service, which I don't see myself getting again unless cell phones go away. I don't know what the mailing costs are, but I figure with printing, addressing, and all the other costs, it must be costing them 25-50 cents or so for each piece of mail.

That's about 4-8 bucks it's costing them to try to sell me services that I either already have, or don't want, and as a current customer I'm footing the bill. How about Cox knocks $5 off my bill each month instead of sending me solicitations for stuff they're already selling me? It'd make me a much happier customer.

 

[Star Wolf]

I laugh at my local cable provider. They won't buy the address, carrier route information list (there are no names involved we only sell change of address info to advertisers since they had your info in the first place) from the postal service so half of their mailings go directly to waste because they mail to every possible number not to every actual street address.

 

[Nociod]

Should be free.

In Norway, all you have to do is to put on a sign on your postbox where it says "no junkmail".

You can make this sign yourself, but the postal office prefers it if you go down to your local postal office and register that you don't want any junkmail. This way they can plan how much junkmail the postman has to bring with him on his deliveries, and of course, the postcenter gives you free "no junkmail" stickers to put up on the postbox

 

[Sephiroth]

I'm sick of junk mail, the local post office has taken to sticking my regular post inside the pages of the daily ad "magazine" they send, instead of just taco-shelling it, so I can't simply discard the shell, I have to go through the pages to make sure I get my mail

 

[Star Wolf]

I'm sick of junk mail, the local post office has taken to sticking my regular post inside the pages of the daily ad "magazine" they send, instead of just taco-shelling it, so I can't simply discard the shell, I have to go through the pages to make sure I get my mail

So where are you in the world actually? A US letter carrier is not supposed to do that, making complaints up the line may stop an individual carrier. However many old school carriers still prep their route that way as it was easier when we actually prepared the mail, "cased it" into route order. Also as new technology is coming on line its becoming harder and harder to a prepare a route to carry in that manner. The introduction of the newest flat sorter machine to his district will stop him