Categories
Consumerism

Junkmail

Junk mailI know it’s Christmas, but this is ridiculous. Here is a list of the junkmail that arrived in my letterbox yesterday:

  • Silver Star carpet cleaning
  • Surfzone
  • KFC
  • BCC Computers
  • Big W
  • Target
  • Repco
  • Telstra Shop
  • The Good Guys
  • Prouds Jewellers
  • Penhalluriack’s building supplies
  • Lincraft
  • Discount coupons booklet
  • Ray White real estate
  • Falafel Kitchen
  • Direct Factory Outlets
  • Crazy John’s
  • Target Country
  • The General Trader
  • Shaver Shop
  • The Warehouse
  • Bunnings
  • United Tools
  • JB Hifi
  • Target (audio visual)
  • KMart
  • SexyLand
  • Bevilles jewellers

Plus two local papers and a Salvos brochure. One of the papers also had a Dell brochure.

Seriously, all arrived yesterday. Mind you, there hadn’t been much for a couple of days.

I can only assume that, rather than have an army of junkmail deliverers traipsing up and down the street every 10 minutes, they were all delivered in one hit.

Suddenly I start to understand why some people have No Junk Mail stickers on their mailboxes.

By Daniel Bowen

Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.

13 replies on “Junkmail”

Try keeping track for a year…

Not counting all the ‘flyers’ like you displayed here, there were 203 credit card offers and 167 catalogs, none of which I took ‘advantage’ of.

I can’t imagine how many pounds of paper my mail carrier has to deliver each year – probably a small forest.

Damn and I was annoyed at American Express trying to flog a credit card to me. Still I’m sending it back in their reply paid envelope with a note in big black texta saying “No Thanks”. Hopefully they’ll get the idea, after all if I wanted a credit card I’d look up deals on the net.

*GASP* that’s a lot of junk mail! Imagine the forests cut down for all that paper. All that will happen to it is into the recycling bin. We’ve been “offered” the local paper at a reduced cost and frankly I hate it. Just glance at it and into the bin it goes. I much prefer reading my news online now.

Good luck getting ready for Christmas!

Daniel
yeah, I got a SexyLand catalgoue as well. That’s the first time I can remember getting adverts from an adult shop in the letter box.
Rog.

Yep, I put a notice above our letterbox to the equivalent of “No Junk Mail” and it appears to be working – I haven’t seen a pizza or estate agent leaflet for a couple of weeks now. We still get the posted junk mail for both us and all previous residents. It’s gradually diminishing as I return it with ‘Gone Away’ written on the envelope. I am starting to realise how little genuine mail I get – we’re even moving to get as many bills done by paperless billing as possible.

My Dad is a fair but fairly vindictive man. He was getting offers from some place (can’t remember who). He wrote back saying “No Thanks”. The offers kept arriving. He put Return to Sender on a few. The offers kept arriving. He rang them up to complain. The offers kept arriving. He carefully wrapped a house-brick in newspaper and taped their return post paid envelope to the brick. He put in the envelope a note expalining that he wasn’t very happy with continually receiving the offers after he had rung to tell them to stop. Funnily enough after that they stopped.

Yesterday I received (the ones i can remember)

– Coles
– Woolworths/Safeway
– Big W
– Kmart
– The Warehouse (x3 of the same catalogue)
– Super Cheap Auto
– Bing Lee
– Retravision
– Some shopping centre nowhere near me boasting that they have a Coles. Wow, a Coles.

There was heaps more, but I forgot most of it.

I have the same problem and when I get a chance I am going to put something on my letterbox. I was wondering whether I would need to go to Bunnings but now I know I can get something from Aus Post I will try that. My recycling bin is overflowing at the moment. My sister lives for her junk mail but I think if you have time to go through it all you need to get a life. A bit sarcastic I suppose and those who save $’s by shopping around for bargains via the junk mail will probably be laughing at me behind my back for saying that.

I can’t believe that you got a SexyLand flyer in your mailbox – that offends me (am I prudish?)
Our junk mail today: Angus & Robertson, GameRush [huh? where?], The Warehouse, Big W, Shaver Shop, Sanyo TVs at Target, and Target. What I find amusing is that we live in fairfield, our two closest shopping centres are Northcote Plaza and “Norflanz”, and of these catalogues seven are relevant to Highpoint (or “Knifepoint” as we call it in our house).

Writing “Addresee is deceased, you insensitive bastards!” and mailing it back in the reply-paid envelope works wonders too.

Took me 2 years to get off Reader’s Digest’s mailing list. Got rid of their junk (scratch here, match there,…) by stuffing their reply-paid envelopes with it (and other junk mail if it fitted) and posting it back to them. :-)

American Express? IIRC, the only way to get off their lists is to follow the instructions on their junk, and call a phone number, enter a 822 digit (or so it seems) number. Sad that the annoyee has to do all the work to get off the annoyer’s list. :-(

If all else fails… remove your letter box and get a PO Box. :-)

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