Sunday, July 02, 2006

Fighting the junkie


SPAM. I am not going to talk about how bad spam is. Everyone hates spam. But can we do something about it? After a lot of thinking, I have come up with a solution that guarantees punitive action against one form of spam - the paper mail kind.

How many times do you open your mailbox to find another letter from a credit card company that says "you have been pre-approved" along with 0% APR for 6 months offers? Do you immediately throw it away? Wait. You can do better. All these "offers" come with a reply envelope with "no postage necessary / postage will be paid by the sender". Why not use that against the company by simply posting it? If you post it empty (or with the unfilled form they sent - to add more weight to the envelope), the company will have to pay for the postage. The company will also be paying someone to open the envelope and to throw it in the dustbin. Isnt that a great way to let them know that you dont want any more offers from them? Well I think so. I am happy, USPS is happy and the company loses money for spamming me. I wish I could do something similar about my email spam or those phone call spam.

Trivia:
Did you know why you call it spam?? The name comes from a Monty Python skit in which all normal conversation was drowned out by the word "spam" being repeated over and over again.

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