Comments on: When Deception and Lies Became Acceptable

By: Barak Pearlmutter

Barak Pearlmutter — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:57:12 +0000

What would be nice would be if some enterprising DA would take some companies to court for fraud. After all, the claim on the envelope “important information enclosed” is fraudulent! This would pave the way for a similar approach to email spam. We don’t really need new laws; we just need to interpret old ones appropriately.

By: Adam

Adam — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 07:40:08 +0000

If they are dumb enough to pre-guarantee postage on the return envelope you can always send it back stuffed full of as many paper items as you can find (makes the return postage really expensive). Go grab one of the free coupon mailers at the supermarket and go to town. If they contact you about it claim it was a mistake and ask them to send the coupons back or reimburse you. Either way you’ll probably end up on a “pain in the ass” list that stops the mail coming.

By: Fritz

Fritz — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 22:48:06 +0000

When I got something like this a while back I considered the idea of opening some sort of fraud claim with the post office (“Important Information Enclosed”), but of course they (the PO) don’t have much motivation to find fault. I think you can force them to eat some cost by returning it postage due or somesuch, but I have never tried (and ti would be even more a bother).

But my favorite approach to these problems is one suggested by Peter Denning (in the CACM, back in ‘83 or so) for cutting down on email (he foresaw the problems even then, since he got so much as ACM Pres.): put a price on your inbox, and keep the “profit”. For email (Denning’s original proposal), this could be a highly tuned “gray list”: no cost for friends, very high for known abusers, etc. (we’re assuming some sort of broad payment system were in place).

For physical mail, it would be hard to fine-tune, and it would need to be a surcharge over and above the mailing cost, but it might be workable via some sort of reusable stamps.

I had plans to promote a grass-roots movement along these lines, under the slogan “Pay (for) Attention!”, but it never got off the ground (plus it would only benefit people, not corporations, so it would never work in the US).

By: MH

MH — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 20:57:14 +0000

I don’t put up with direct mail garbage — I’ve taken myself off the lists.

I’m assuming you’re in the US — land of deception and lies at this time. Just write a letter to the Direct Mail Marketing association and request to be removed from their list (or added to the do-not-mail list, I’ve forgotten which it is). Also contact the three credit reporting agencies, and let them know that you do not wish to get pre-qualified credit lines. Etc., etc., etc. There’s lots of things you _can_ do to decrease the amount of junk mail you get. (a web search will help greatly with that effort). Do the same with unsolicited phone calls, too — there’s a 800 number for that.

Contacting the supervisor won’t help — he won’t care what you think, and be unable to change it anyway.

What would make me happier is if the direct mail people had to pay the full rate for first-class postage — then maybe the post office wouldn’t have to raise the rates on us so often! :-)