The stunning thought process of the USPS

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Wired magazine (along with other mags, I believe) has a contest each month for odd things sent to them in the mail. They always have a picture of the oddest thing they received in the letters section. It continues to surprise me. This month's - a piano key. Not just the visible key, but the entire piece going all the way into the piano (probably a foot and a half long). The sender wrote on it - "at this rate, it'll take a long time for me to send you the whole piano."

[Ponine]

Originally Posted by Snowflake

Ay photos to back this up, inquiring minds want to see!

to you Ponine!

I'll ask the recipient. Last I heard she still had them.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

Hey buddy, that's a four letter word where I come from. It Direct Mail Marketing.

Let's compromise. I'll grant that what you send out is Direct Mail Marketing if you'll grant that what I receive is junk mail.

We'll just start thinking of the postal service as a magical alchemical process that turns gold into ****.

[Moonliner]

Humm perhaps we should launch a drive to create a "National do not mail list" to match the do not call one....

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Moonliner

Humm perhaps we should launch a drive to create a "National do not mail list" to match the do not call one....

There is one. Kevy posted it somewhere here recently.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

There is one. Kevy posted it somewhere here recently.

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

For anyone who wants to add their name to a national "Do Not Mail" list, there is one available. It is managed by the Direct Marketers Association (DMA), a national trade organization for Direct Marketers. It is easy to join their Do Not Mail registry. Just go to their web site http://www.the-dma.org/ and click the "Remove my name from mailing lists.

The DMA will add your name and address to a list that responsible direct mail marketers will use to run their mailing lists against. In the direct mail business, we call it the Pander list and use it on most all of our mailings (we don't use it in cases where the organization, most commonly a non-profit, supplies us a list of past contributors/participants or other such "house" lists).

Of course, this is not a guarantee that you will be removed from all mail lists - it is a voluntary procedure. And anyone who is doing a saturation mailing (where it goes to every Postal address) will not do a suppression, but it should help keep you off some of the lists.

.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Wait, it costs me a dollar to do that?

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Wait, it costs me a dollar to do that?

Not quite the same thing as a federally mandated "Do not mail list" I guess.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Wait, it costs me a dollar to do that?

Seriously? I did not know that.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Moonliner

Not quite the same thing as a federally mandated "Do not mail list" I guess.

No, but is the closest that I know of. The DMA has successfully lobbied against a governmentally mandated list for mailing. One of the key parts of the argument is that a phone call is more invasive since the recipient cannot control when the phone call is received, but they can control when they get their mail (which is non-invasive).

The DMA (smartly) created the Pander list in an additional effort to ward off a governmentally mandated list.