Man urges mailing junk if you can't Occupy Wall Street

[Ichingcarpenter]

One San Francisco man whose day job has been getting in the way of his taking part in the Occupy Wall Street protests has come up with another idea: Mail junk to the banks in prepaid credit card mailers.


Artie Moffa suggests in a YouTube video that people who cannot take part in the Occupy protests in person take prepaid credit card mailers and fill them with junk -- not just any junk, but pieces of wood or any other items that would be heavy enough to cost the banks more postage, he tells ABCNews.com.

"I kept getting all of these credit card mailers," he told the news organization. "It struck me as tone deaf that banks would continue hawking their wares in the midst of all this."

Moffa, a poet and SAT tutor, believes such mailings would help encourage a dialogue with Wall Street.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/10/man-urges-mailing-junk-if-you-cant-occupy-wall-street/1?csp=34news&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+usatoday-NewsTopStories+%28News+-+Top+Stories%29

[Sherman A1]

1. Seems like a good idea to me and

also provides a bit of corporate subsidy to the Post Office which we know could use all the help it can get right now. I believe it is a good use of the tax dollars that the banks received as their bailout.


:toast:

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. The video is at the link

I thought it was pretty clever.

[lbrtbell]

4. It's a highly illegal idea - n/t

[redqueen]

6. What law does this violate? (nt)

[Le Taz Hot]

8. None.

I've been doing it, or a variation thereof, for years.

[redqueen]

9. I wonder why people do that.

If you're not sure, why not say, "I *think* this might be illegal." ???

Ugh... anyway thanks. I like this idea.

[lonestarnot]

17. Full of crap!

[proud2BlibKansan]

24. It is? How?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

28. The Guacamole Act of 1917.

[proud2BlibKansan]

37. No that mandates chips with salsa on every table

from October through March:)

[Liberal_in_LA]

44. yum!

[SwissTony]

3. Probably apocryphal

but in the sixties, there was a story going round about a guy who kept receiving mail from a company even though he had made it clear he did not want their mail. So, one day he wrote "Return to sender" on the envelope from the company and glued it to a brick.

He never heard from the company again.

[MedicalAdmin]

30. When I renovated my front yard I found that there was an old brick walkway...

... that was just covered with dirt and grass. The voices had rotted due to moisture so I had this stack of half rotted bricks. I salvaged what uncoils and added them to the garden but instill had lots left. So I boxed them up and mailed 1 box back to a credit card company or insurance company with each postage laid envelope that I received. It took a summer but I eventually got them all mailed.

Just check with your local post office first before tossing them in the mail. My local post office union workers were most helpful.

[MelungeonWoman]

5. This is a great idea.

An even easier way to cost them money is to crumple a piece of paper to put in the envelope. The postal sorters kick out anything over 1/4 inch thickness, uneven envelopes get charged at the package rate.

You're putting a few coins back in the Post Offices coffers as well, it's a win-win.

[Le Taz Hot]

7. Brilliant!

K & R

[qb]

10. K&R - it also reduces the recycling burden on your city!

Though maybe not so much on the bank's city... depending on whether or not the bank recycles :silly:

[Shagbark Hickory]

34. And if that bank's city happens to be NY city then they'll just float it around on a barge

for a few years until they find room for in at a landfill in south carolina or somewhere.

[Shagbark Hickory]

11. I've tried this before. Take a box, fill with rocks and then tape the pre-paid envelope to the box.

Then take the box to the post office.

First of all, I'm not entirely sure that those boxes make it to anywhere other than the dumpster.

Second of all, with the 13 ounce rule, that Fedex and UPS paid so much money lobbying for, you may have to take your box of rubbish into a post office counter. You can't just leave it for your carrier to pick up or leave it at a mailbox somewhere. What happens if you don't? I have no idea. But they may just toss it in the trash.

And for all I know, the banksters probably bought a few postal regulations of their own. There may be some consequences for it. :shrug:

If you want to get even with them, don't use loans. Don't get your real address on your credit history and you won't receive that junk mail.

[2pooped2pop]

12. If it has proper postage and breaks no other mailing laws

they will deliver it or return it to the sender one. Unless of course it's bulk mail,(I think they call that standard mail these days) that ,will be disposed of and will not make it back to the sender. Nor will non profit.
Generally with return postage paid, they are literally charged when it is returned. Now I don't know if they have any per piece agreement that would make it so that they didn't have to pay by the weight of the returned piece or not.

[Shagbark Hickory]

15. See, that's the kind of thing I would expect the banksters to have worked out.

...
Some policy where if the postage due on a mail piece is $400, their contract caps the price at 50 cents.
Then it costs the USPS a lot more money to get it there than they make on it.

And even then, you still have to take it in to the counter.

And don't think for a second that's going to win you a lot of support from the post office. If I had to guess, they probably frown on this kind of technique. They may even ask who you are and for ID. And if that information gets back to the company that sent the junk to you in the first place, they could try to sue you.

I'm just looking at all the angles here.

[Ikonoklast]

13. I've done that fotr years now.

Unsolicited mail gets ripped to confetti and mailed back in their pre-paid envelope.

[Shagbark Hickory]

19. Do you use the mailpiece with your name on it?

[Ikonoklast]

20. Yep they get it all.

[Shagbark Hickory]

22. I think I'll give that a try.

I tried opting out of the credit card offers but they still keep pouring in. And it's such a disposal problem.
I've got a 40 pound box of mail to deal with from the past several months. In an area where the trash collectors seem very interested with the contents, it seems like the easiest solution would be just to mail it all back to them.

[Ikonoklast]

26. Oh, it gets run through the shredder, first.

They really do get confetti back.

I shred everything that goes in the trash.

[Shagbark Hickory]

27. How about I run it through my digestive tract first.

Or is that terrorism? :rofl:

[Ikonoklast]

29. Used Food will not be taxed under Herb Cain's 9-9-9 plan, so...

...Winning!

[renate]

31. I certainly wouldn't include that one, personally

Every other piece of paper they send with the offer is generic--if there's any potential downside to identifying ourselves, why do it?

I would just return a blank piece of paper. If this ever became a common enough practice that the Post Office were somehow instructed to weed out the heavier envelopes so the banks don't get charged (and I have no idea whether that's possible--it's just a thought), it'd be easier to get blank pieces of paper sneak in under the radar.

[Shagbark Hickory]

32. Why any paper at all? Why not just an empty envelope?

The nice thing about sending back the application with your name on it is maybe then they'll get the idea that you don't want their application.

Not that they care about that but maybe by some stroke of luck the person receiving it will enter into a computer that you sent back an application and thereby removing you from the list of people they are targeting with their mass mailing.

[pipi_k]

14. Then again, maybe not...

According to the article (linked below), it appears the post office has the right to toss stuff like that into the trash


http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/566/can-i-mail-a-brick-back-to-a-junk-mail-firm-using-the-business-reply-envelope


Also, if they find out who's behind it, the person could be charged with "abuse of the mails". Not that I believe for a second that the PO is out there tracking down people misusing postpaid envelopes in order to prosecute them...but at the very least, all one's efforts would be for naught, as they can, and probably will, just toss the envelopes if they look suspicious.

[Shagbark Hickory]

35. +! "the direct-mail firms usually worked out a deal" Doesn't that just say it all?

Thanks for posting that. It confirms my suspicions.

[lonestarnot]

16. K & R!

[otohara]

18. Hey That Was My Idea - Posted on DU 10/4

a couple weeks ago - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=2053357&mesg_id=2053357

I've sent back 10, stuffed to the gills.

[Obamanaut]

21. This was on an Andy Rooney segment (60 Minutes) several years ago ->

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/telemarket.asp

The Snopes piece talks about the false advice for telemarketers, but does mention his piece on junk mail.

[cigsandcoffee]

23. Now that's impressive - a poet that can pre-qualify for credit card offers. n/t

[pacalo]

25. My son got a Visa Platinum card offer when he was in the sixth grade. No kidding.

[Shagbark Hickory]

33. He shoulda signed up then maxed it out and then defaulted on it.

The impact on his credit score wouldve been 7 years tops. So around the time he'd turn 18, he'd be back to square one.

[ShadowLiberal]

41. Not a good idea to do that, I've heard of parents stealing their kids identity and doing just that

The impact from what doesn't go away as fast you think. I've seen a story about this on Dateline or a show like that.

It was a case where one father ruined their son's name and credit score by the time they were 18, without his son even knowing it. For years he took out all sorts of credit cards and loans in his son's name, and never paid the bills, and the stupid banks kept on giving him more and more new credit cards and loans in his son's name.

He wasn't living with his son in those years, and somehow news of it never got to the son until he applied for a student loan & a job when he turned 18.

The most outrageous part of was that son also found out that they had a criminal record, because his father got arrested when the son was like 7 (or maybe it was 13?) and the father gave the cops his son's name, and the cops were too stupid to do an age check and see "hey wait a second, you're a middle age man, not a kid years away from turning 18".

[Shagbark Hickory]

48. Well that's identity theft.

Identity theft is a no-no.

[pacalo]

43. Just in case you're serious, I'm the type who will turn around to return undercharges to the store.

His having received the offer only made me think very low of Visa. I figured the company might have picked up his name due to my having ordered gifts for my son to arrive in his name. Corporate marketing, with quotas to meet & profits to make, at its best.

[Shagbark Hickory]

49. Since the "credit crunch" in 2007-2009, I have have not had any slowdown of credit card offers.

It seems like they may have even got worse. I can understand why you'd be upset.
If the invasion of privacy isn't bad enough, targeting your child at such a young age should be illegal.
And it probably would be if the banks weren't more powerful than the government.

[proud2BlibKansan]

38. My friend's cat got one.

He laughed and threw it away. Then his cat started getting calls from a collection agency.

[City Lights]

39. One of our cats got one, too.

I have no idea how his name got into the credit card mix, but when it came in the mail we were like :wtf:

[Xicano]

47. LOL. Your cat wanted a credit card, then stick you with the bill..

Them kitty cats are sneaky..

:evilgrin:

[City Lights]

51. Oddly enough, it was the cat that also answered the phone!

To our knowledge, he never meowed when he answered, but the ringer on one particular phone bugged him, so he'd grab the cord with his teeth and pull it off the cradle! Maybe he did have a conversation with a credit card representative behind our backs! LOL!

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[City Lights]

40. I've been doing this for years.

I usually rip up everything they send me and stuff it back into the prepaid envelope.

[Harry Monroe]

42. Oh, I've done this before...

But I simply shred the application and the other junk inside and then put it back in the envelope and then mail it back to them. It's easier on the mailman that way!!

[krispos42]

45. I used to mail back then entire thing they sent me...

...including the envelope it come in (folded into thirds), and stuff as many expired coupons as I could fit into the pre-paid envelopes.

:-)

[ChoppinBroccoli]

46. I Used To Do This With Mailings From The Republican Party

For some reason, I used to get mailings from the Republican Party asking me for "my opinions" on the issues (along with a request for a donation, of course). I used to fill out their little questionnaires with all the answers they didn't want to hear and then load up the postage-prepaid envelope with as much junk as I could and send it back to them on their dime. I always joked that one day I was going to tape the envelope to a cinder block and send it back to them, but I never did it.

I think this is a good idea, and I'll probably start doing it. I get a lot of solicitations for credit cards and whatnot, and I usually just throw them away.

[unhappycamper]

50. I've been doing this for a long time.

Some tips:

Save all those catalogs you get in the mail. (Heavier paper is bettah.)

Save all those postage-paid return envelopes you get in the mail.

Neatly cut up those catalogs and put them in the envelope and make 'em fat. I use heavy, wide scotch tape to seal the envelope to keep all the goodness in.

-0-

I usually return about 1.5 pounds of postage-paid return envelopes a month.

It's good for the environment and the PO.