As a postal worker I have an awesome tip:
Take all your mail, then rifle through it looking at the postage. Make a pile for Standard, a pile for First Class, and put everything else in a third pile (non-profit etc). Look through the pile of Standard. It’s literally all garbage. Look through the pile of first class, them’s the bills. Look through the non-profit pile and if you’re lucky you got return address labels from the Humane Society. If you didn’t get return address labels and you need return address labels, make a small donation to the ASCPA and give it a month
Man I’ve been giving the ASPCA $20 a month for years and not a single address label…
Try Heifer International
Well you see there’s your problem, you were supposed to be donating to the ASCPA
What’s an address label? (I’m not american)
Label you put in the corner of your outgoing mail that has your name and address preprinted on it so you don’t have to write it.
Given that I write like… 2 letters a year, it’s really not a significant burden. Anything of consequence is online, and if I’m mailing Christmas cards or something, I’ll want a festive return label anyway.
If I lived in the US I’d have liked to vote to make it illegal to deliver promotional / junk / “Standard” mail to mailboxes with a standardized and large “NO ADS” label in specified spots on the front and sides, with a small fine for the post worker and very large fines for the companies in the ads.
I would not be happy to sit and sort through piles of junk for the rest of my life, with it without knowing that “Standard” is all junk.
US thing I’m guessing? Here in Sweden, we don’t get much spam mail in the first place but you simply put a “no ads” sign on your mailbox and then only get the stuff you need. The 8 years I’ve lived in my current apartment I’ve gotten like 3 things that weren’t bills and stuff I need.
In the US, conservative lawmakers have been waging a quiet war against our postal system for a while now.
Highlights: They forced it to be self-sustaining (cut federal funding), then when that didn’t kill it they forced it to, in a very short time frame, pre-fund retirement benefits ahead of time for all current and former employees.
The postal system is more or less dependent on the funds it gets from spam mailers.
Edit: To clarify, I’m not insinuating that the bulk/majority of its income is from junk mail, I’m just stating that its not nothing, so they don’t really have an incentive to kill that source if revenue.
Canada as well. There’s been pushes to privatize the postal service so they can race to the bottom for profit.
It’s very saddening that people fall for this and delude themselves into thinking companies will compete to provide a better service.
Yep, look at phone companies, healthcare, prisons and ISP’s in the US to see how privatizing these things shakes out. It’s not pretty.
It’s one of the only things in the constitution they are required to have. I don’t understand how privatizing it was ever constitutional.
The Constitution hasn’t mattered for a while, only the parts of it the Court likes… Which is increasingly little of it.
I recently got denied for a public housing program in the US.
I did not find out about this until I was at the local public assistance office for another reason, where I just randomly happened to be told that I was denied by the person who was apparently my case manager.
She said she mailed it a few days ago and was surprised I didn’t get it.
2 weeks later and the actual denial letter never arrived.
…
Keep in mind, almost all government assistance programs in most of the US will correspond by you via mail only. If they email or phone call you, well you still need to show up in person or mail them for most important applications.
And… if they mail you something, they’ll often give you maybe 10 days (not business days, even though everything they do takes business days) to respond and have your response be received by, or they’ll permanently bar you from whatever you are applying for and file it as ‘refused to provide documentation.’
So if your shit gets lost in the mail, fuck you, nobody cares!
…
I have said this in various places on lemmy at other times and people seem to think I am joking, but I am not: If anyone from a functioning country wants to do a sham marriage for tax benefits and I can immigrate there, please let me know. Living off of disability payments alone fucking sucks here.
I mean… We’ve always had just as much spam mail.
Where’d all the funding go previously then if it’s now all used to support themselves?
Previously I assume it worked like any government program worked - they get a budget set by Congress and they collect fees which function as taxes, and the whole system may-or-may-not be balanced.
Nowadays USPS makes its real money on packages for online commerce. Junk mail is kind of a relic that hasn’t gone away.
Yeah they have to respect it by law, same in Norway
Everything important is by digital mail now though, not to be confused with email …
Now you’re just rubbing it in:
Most people might think that any e-mail provider is good enough, but a digital mailbox is a bit different from an e-mail. The Norwegian digital mailbox is tied to your identity, and much more secure than an e-mail inbox is.
Does Norway have a digital mailbox run by the government, or just lots of private options? No, I don’t want Kivra data mining all my mail… so I only have MinMyndighetsPost, but doesn’t cover anything except government mail.
Ran by the post office.
Important mail from the government usually just comes in the government portal.
That’s it, start the bidding
The US’s junk post is mostly ADR (addressed direct advertising) just like Sweden, no?
put a “no ads” sign on your mailbox
holy shit a irl spam filter
Australia seems to be pretty good. You can add “a no junk mail” sticker to your mailbox and then the only things you get are addressed mail and political leaflets
Practically all my bills come by email, and packages go to the front doorstep, so a letter is a surprise
Norwegian here, I moved to Ireland once and while I stayed there I really gained an appreciation for how intolerant my home country is of bullshit ads.
I wished I could prosecute and fine every single company that sent me those ads in the mail while I lived there. I wanted to ruin them, I would have voted for it in an instant if I could.
In France you just put a sticker or something on your box saying “no ads” and that’s it, no more ads posted. It really is quite a bunch of paper every week, too!
Obviously the Internet should remain as public and free as it is/as possible but you just made me want to sell it to France
Same in Australia. Doesn’t stop the pious “holier than thou” shits from illegally filling my letterbox with crap advertising their church
Mail it back to them with a box of bricks with costs to receiver
In the US you just shoot the people that try to put ads in your mailbox. Not a lawyer tho so idk. shrug
LPT: probably shouldn’t do this
LPT: If you aren’t caught it isn’t a crime
Thanks for the warning, i almost shot the mailman.
No, don’t shoot the mailman, shoot the machine sorting the mail.
ILPT: probably should do this
This post was written by a dog with a gun.
How does this nonsense comment even have upvotes?
Jokes are funny
Weird, unrelated comment, but yeah—jokes are indeed funny.
🤣
Yeah idk man, my brain just produces things and sometimes they just happen to turn into typed text.
Nonsense is a fun reprieve when the topic is fuggen bills/junk mail?
Hate is for bitches. You’re not a bitch, right?
In Germany, you can just put a little sign on your letterbox that tells the post person to not give you any free newspapers or mail.
Only ads I’ve gotten in years where the ones directly addressed to me, and that’s like every few months from one of two slightly old fashioned firms, and tends to include a voucher, so that’s something.
It’s literally illegal for a post worker to not give you junk mail in the US.
That’s because you’re a cucked society who keeps voting for the businessman to sodomize your life.
The rule they’re referencing is actually a pretty good one. It prevents postal workers with an agenda from selectively not delivering non-specifically addressed mail, which includes things like public hearings on land use and taxes, voting information, class action suit notifications, etc.
Unfortunately it’s a little easy to exploit, but there’s only 1-2 big mail advertisers per region and if you speak to your local post office you can easily opt out of the junkmail they send out.
If it’s so easy, and it works, why is “go talk to the local post office and you won’t get any more ads” only mentioned here, deep down in the comment chain? Why isn’t this the advice actual post office workers come with? Why do they just tell you to personally, manually, routinely sort out “Standard” mail instead?
I personally think you’re talking bullshit.
I’m guessing in reality it only opts you out of some ads, or maybe post offices are inconsistent in actually following the requests, so people who’ve tried it are unlikely to recommend it as in practice it barely changes the situation. Am I wrong here?
I also think “Equal rights for all advertisements! The post office must get it all out to the people!” is a terrible way to prevent tampering with what does and doesn’t get delivered, and again you as a society have been hoodwinked by suits telling you what’s in your best interest. Like the clowns you are.
“Unfortunately it’s a little easy to exploit…” should be printed on every cover of every title of the US Code of Laws. With a little winkey face ;)
Yep, you’re wrong! This is the advice post office workers “come with”. It’s the same as with the do not call registry - most people just don’t know about it.
Also, erm, this isn’t “equal rights for advertisements”? It’s just an old law that says the post office has to deliver everything they’re given. The first poster was just embellishing it for drama, which is a time honored american tradition so I can’t really judge them.
Hate on the US all you want tho, just seems like there are more worthy topics than a misrepresented law.
I’m gonna need to see a lot more testimonials from people this has worked for before I even begin to believe you; That it’s as simple as going to the post office once and asking them not to deliver ads to your address, and you stop getting ads there.
And if this is true, it just means a different couple of traits were creating America’s ad mail problem. Ignorance and laziness.
Lmao traits that as we all know have never been ascribed to the american public, or the human species in general.
(Unrelated but dude, an entreaty: If this is bait it’s pretty weak. And even if it’s not you might want to try taking a break from the internet, it’s making you act like a stooge.)
((Seriously you’re not going to get me to argue that the US isn’t fundementally broken. I just want the ways it’s broken to be accurately recorded, is all))
Ich hab das nicht dran weil ich die freien Zeitungen benutze, um den Biomüll einzupacken 💀
In Dutchland you can opt out of advertising, but choose to keep the free newspapers. Or not have both.
Same in France, and some cities are even experimenting the opposite: ads are opt-in, and you need to put a “I want ads” sign to get them instead.
Fucking America is horseshit, why wasn’t I born over there
Same in Estonia, I check my mailbox maybe 2-3 times per year, and that is just because I have nothing else to do while waiting for the lift to come. Also, now I want a cheesecake.
Yeah, cheesecake would be nice. Anyways, the problem here in Germany is that letters are still used for most things that are in any way official, we still don’t have that whole e-government thing you got over there.
In eastern ruzzia, they already knew the mail was coming and there was a big time payment due. They knew this for months 🤣 and that brings the pleasure. Oh by the way, if you guys like Moscow, you gotta a few months before it gets a much different look and a new name 😁. It’s okay 🆗, they know.
Are you alright there?
Just stretching out the joke.
🤷♂️
Get well soon I guess.
Thanks man. I’ll let them know.
I am so confused
Canada too. My wife was a letter carrier for a few years, she would make a note of non-admail boxes if someone put a notification on the box or sent in a form to opt-out, and put a red sticker on their sort slot at the depot. Then when she delivered it would only be addressed mail that went to that box.
I’d love that. My current routine is to just toss the ads and whatnot in the recycling bin on my way in. I look at it just long enough to determine whether it’s important, I don’t even look at what their deals are.
I don’t know know if you’re in the US, but the junk mail senders here have been making their ads look like official mail.
I had one the other day that said IMPORTANT stamped across an otherwise nondescript, but official looking enevelope. So opened it just in case. It was an ad for some douchbag company stating that it wanted to buy our house for cash.
I always worry that one day I’m gonna toss a piece of mail that I actually needed because of this bullshit.
I got one from T-Mobile that looked like a business envelope and didn’t have a return address. Nothing but an ad inside.
I got that same exact mail as well. lol. I hate that when you buy a house, your information is basically exposed for all these 3rd parties and scummy companies to spam you with mail that’s made to look official and urgent.
Yup, am in the Us and have that issue. I generally hold my “important” mail up to the sun while walking back in, and can usually spot an ad within seconds. I have learned to recognize a few return addresses, so I know where the junk in my area tends to come from, as well as the official stuff from my banks and whatnot.
It’s super sleazy though, and I hate it.
Sadly too many asshats ignore the stickers. I could now sue the shitty “free”
newspaperad delivery device, but that’s somehow more work and money than I’m willing to invest.Once again, European consumer protection laws make Americans look incredibly dumb. It’s almost like we haven’t updated our postal service since it’s inception…
Same here in Czech Republic. Except some idiot neighbours of mine put up labels they took from magazines that have ads on them.
A tip if you’re in the USA, look at the top right of envelope. If it says “presorted standard” it’s garbage.
In Germany it’s “Dialogpost” or “Postwurf Spezial”
Der junkenmailer
What’s crazier is that I get 5lbs of junk mail regularly, but if I go to the post office and try to mail a 1 lb envelope it’s like $40
Economies of scale…s
USPS says you can write “Refused” on your mail to refuse it. I’ve heard that can possibly stop them from sending you more.
If you wanted to actually opt-out from the largest mail advertising organization’s lists though, you have to pay them. Good 'ol capitalism.
You can completely opt out of the credit card spam ones with a simple sign up on a federal website, but I forget the exact one and am too lazy to hunt it down. Only lasts 5 years though
Or you can do a full mail in thing for the lifetime one, might do that since I just hit my 5 year and started getting spam again
The site is OptOutPrescreen, by the way!
It’s not a federal website, it’s a “joint venture among Equifax Information Services, LLC, Experian Information Solutions, Inc., Innovis Data Solutions, Inc., and TransUnion, LLC (collectively the “Consumer Credit Reporting Companies”).”
So it’s not technically government-enforced in any way, but the credit bureaus just kind of decide to honor it to be… nice?
I know nothing about this but top of my head it sounds like one of those self-policing things companies do to keep from being regulated. So they’ll honor it if you jump their hoops, but so few people even know the hoops are there it works out for said company to honor the few that do, and they will, to keep that regulation from ever appearing.
Yeah, those are the details!
It does actually work, and I assume it’s entirely because of what the other reply said
Capitalism is shit, hopefully more people can learn about this because it IS nice, even more hopefully the law gets changed to end it
Only works on first and second class mail, and just be unopened. I’ve been doing this for years and I get maybe 1 credit card offer a month. It’s now at the point where most of my mail is actually stuff I want/need and only get mail like twice a week.
You have to write it in red and diagonally as everyone knows.
I wonder if the online services that intend on reducing your email spam would also reduce paper spam.
They work by formally asking all the personal data sharing companies to remove your data
I wish they would get rid of all mail except for person to person written letter, checks made out to me, and packages I’ve ordered. Everything else is garbage.
You’d be killing the USPS. They survive because of that garbage.
Well, that might be how it’s currently primarily funded, but that doesn’t mean that that’s the way it has to be funded.
See also every argument about ads.
Why yes, taxes should pay essential public services like mail and news.
I would rather pay for more expensive stamps than a time and environmental cost.
Then the USPS is too large and not fit for purpose.
I’m not convinced they should survive, given all the waste. USPS jobs pay well tho. I’ve made some decent money as a contractor… hauling truckloads of these garbage commercial flyers and nondescript magazines. But in the distribution facilities, I’ve often seen literally shipments of birds, bees, plants, or just glancing down at a pile of mail, might see an obvious love letter. Hopefully not a creep. And all the shipping from Amazon, UPS, Fedex, etc, tends to find its way in a USPS truck.
edit: also, fuck DeJoy. that rat bastard can go back to XPO.
USPS is a magnificent success of the the United States as a country. Holy shit let me shake some of that junk mail out your truckload.
Government services shouldn’t be built to turn a profit.
Government services shouldn’t die based on your bias at your job.
The USPS is one of the few legitimate things we can point to show American Democracy could be great. Fuck all the bullshit mail.
But yeah fuck DeJoy.
i’m not sure which choir to which you preach, but it ain’t over here. I’m not complaining about “government services”, but transporting truckloads of useless paper is lame and wasteful. That is a thing that USPS does. And USPS also gets easily exploited, see the OP meme.
Let me try another tack. USPS has the lowest rate for sending anything compared to UPS and FedEx. Sure they can’t guarantee the exact date of delivery because Mike might need a day for “self care” or “self taking care of shit during business hours”".
You want it now, you just a premium. Grainger got half the shit you want to do a job but at a premium. Same concept.
The cool thing about USPS is they are required to deliver to any and all addresses in America. Your Grandma lives in the middle of nowhere and needs her prescriptions? Usps is probably the only service that will deliver that to her.
In fact medication is a top reason why we NEED the USPS to survive
That’s a strange way of spelling “straight to fucking hell”.
Checks are also incredibly outdated in most countries.
I’m in my mid thirties in Germany and literally never got or sent a single check.
I literally do not see any point in giving or receiving checks. I don’t know any neanderthals, and the ones I’ve seen I doubt I’ll ever buy from or sell anything to.
Sure, but you wouldn’t turn one away if someone legitimately sent you free money.
I’ve never seen one in my life, wouldn’t know what to do with it honestly haha.
Come to think of it, that’s pretty much email, too.
75% automated notifications or stuff that isn’t quite spam but you don’t care about
23% spam
2% stuff that you better not miss
Just finished my jury duty and it was a wild ride
Other jurors shocked me with how antaganostic they were to the plaintiff for asking for compensation and punishment for a nursing home’s negligence. We ended up awarding money for clear negligence- specifically for injuries (physical and financial) and pain, but it was a struggle to find agreement from them for clear facts that neither side disputed (and verbally acknowledged this nondispute). When it came time to answer if the doctor was negligent in not consulting a wound physician, they didnt agree because the nursing home policy said “do it if wound doesnt improve in 2-4 weeks”. Wound got worse over the 5-6 weeks they waited and by the time they did, she was so bad from not participating in therapy (due to being laid on the wound constantly and the ensuing pain) that she had had to be put on hospice and died from a lack of dialysis.
Because they didnt find the violation of her rights (violations were agreed to) to be reckless or willful (such as by understaffing or poor care), we could not award additional damages to punish the nursing home
I take solace in the fact that it gave the family closure for a 6 year lawsuit
That second part is surprising to me. “Facility policy” and/or signed paperwork don’t allow a provider to be negligent to someone under their care.
Hell, it wouldn’t even protect individual nurses’ licenses. Any licensed individual who provides care is responsible for following the law, even if “policy” contradicts it.
Thats what I was trying to argue but the other jurors were more concerned with not having to come back on Monday and a “that’s what it says” with no critical thinking. Esp when the plaintiff expert witnesses (an excellent nurse who has a practice investigating nursing homes for compliance with the federal regulations and an excellent doctor who worked for CMS writing the very regulations) outlined what care the law requires
I don’t know anything about this stuff, but if there’s bad judgement because people didn’t want to have to come back, then something is seriously rotten about the system and it doesn’t work. What the hell.
I was taught as a child to open plain envelopes first. Checks, credit cards, and other important stuff are put in boring envelopes.
I worked for a CC company and when we mailed checks to customers we told them “This check will come in a plain white envelope.” And the amount of people who thank me for letting them know because they might have thrown it away.
Who the hell just throws mail away without knowing what it is first? And if it’s not clear from the outside, then without opening it first?
As someone who rents so much of my mail is from past residents which I have told them do not live here, or local ads (literally several magazines per month) which I can’t opt out of cause it’s EDDM, that I straight up just stopped collecting it. Any small packages that would have gone in the box go on top of the cluster and any letters I received are stuffed into the box and I pick them out if I happen to notice I’m missing something.
Anyone that really needs my attention would call me or email me shrug
Watch out for jury duty summons.
My address on my license is still my parents house and I haven’t lived there permanently for 18 years. I move around a lot (hopefully I can finally stop that this year) so I wasn’t going to get a new driver’s license every year or two. Whenever I get a summons, I just reply with one of the exclusions (“I live more than 40 miles away”, “I don’t live in the state anymore”, etc…). I’ve never had to go 😂
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Mine made a clerical issue when I updated my address and decided there were two of me once. Only found out because both of me got jury duty. That was a fun one.
I’ve lived in two other states so far other than the one on my license, but I also haven’t driven in those states in those times (other than something like ZipCar or renting a car) that I’ve lived there. The time I did live in the same state, I lived at least 1.5 hours from that address/county so I could just claim “I’m too far away”.
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If I’ve never been summoned for jury duty. Does this mean I don’t have any peers?
I got summoned once, but it was from my previous state because I had forgotten to change my residency. So I responded that I’m out of state and promptly changed my license and voter registration. Boom, dodged that one. :)
But seriously, I would actually like to serve on a jury.
When I was renting I had a stamp “Return to sender. Addressee not known at this address”
I do similar. Cross the name out with a Sharpie and write “MOVED”.
After owning the place for two years now I just throw it out.
Just so you know, throwing mail away that isn’t yours is a federal crime.
I did that for a couple years, and now I still get junk from the previous owner. I’ve been here 10 years…
Then again, now I get invitations to retirement stuff, so I guess that’s cool (I’m nowhere near retirement, but the previous owner was about that age).
Yeah it took some 15 years for the letters for the people who lived in my house before me to stop
Yeah, I mostly just toss them now, but if I get a bunch all at once, I’ll take a couple minutes to annoy the mail carrier with some “Not at this address” markings.
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Yeah I work in a government department which among other things has to handle mail returned to it, and I know we mark addresses unreliable when mail comes back
I guess I just hope the electricity company and local government is as diligent
I’d wait until I had a few before making an effort to post the returns (Australia doesn’t have mail pickup from your home mailbox; we have post boxes at local shops)
My mailbox is near where I leave my garbage, so I only check it once a week. I immediately throw anything that’s clearly an ad directly into the garbage and never look at it.
Same here. Like 90% of my mail is for previous residents. One guy apparently never updated his address so he keeps getting sent checks and I just throw them away. I’ve been living here for 9 months 🤷♂️
I check my mail like once every few weeks. I checked it a few days ago and most of it wasn’t for me. Three out of the 5 things that were for me were from TicketMaster, Rite-Aid, and Choice Healthcare and they were all “Sorry, we’ve been hacked and your personal info was probably leaked.”
Even if this became common the net result would be that companies stop using pre paid envelopes and you’d have to use your own stamp to apply for stuff.
Oh noooooo
Surely this will have a real impact instead of just making low-paid workers jobs much harder.
Is that the banana guy? What a loser.
