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Postal junk mail & pushy annoying advertising

iBlue

iBlue

macrumors Core
Original poster
Mar 17, 2005
19,180
16
London, England
Sometimes I think junk mail should be banned, especially the unofficial postal sort - where some muppet comes along and basically just throws brightly coloured paper trash into your letterbox. If it's not addressed to us it usually just goes straight into the recycling bin. It's irritating and it's such a waste of time, paper (trees) and ink.

I'm sick of excessive advertising and this obsession with consumerism and creating false "needs". If I need something I'll think of it myself and search out where to buy it myself, thankyouverymuch. Putting abominations of graphic design trash through my letterbox is no way to inspire me to support your business.

TV ads (when I'm not just skipping past them. Bless you DVR and live TV pausing/fast-forwarding) seem to be getting more obnoxious as well. I refuse to even give them acknowledgement by mentioning their name but a perfect example is a certain car buying ad that runs in the UK. It is nothing more than a purposeful annoyance to sink their HORRIBLE repetitive jingle into your head. I'm sure some of you know just what I'm referring to. I implore you not to support their crap by linking them either. I'd rather set my car on fire than sell it to those sleazeballs. I'm sure it must work some of the time and that's what they bet on, but to annoy so many for the sake of a few? Piss off!

I understand advertising pays for that television I like to watch but if you have to advertise, be creative and have a sense of decency. Plenty of decent ads out there that are not ear and eye sores.

I'm with Bill Hicks on this. (NSFW, language)

Yeah, thanks, I feel better now. Feel free to join me with the pitchforks or oppose me for ripping on your business model. I'd be most happy to hear from you. http://upc.*************/uploads/smilies/club.gif :D
 
I agree on the junk mail through your mailbox. I never respond or pay any attention to it. It just goes straight in the recycling. Unfortunately the stuff your postman delivers (unaddressed: they just get a big stack and shove one through each letter box) basically keeps the Royal Mail afloat :(
 
robbieduncan said:
I agree on the junk mail through your mailbox. I never respond or pay any attention to it. It just goes straight in the recycling. Unfortunately the stuff your postman delivers (unaddressed: they just get a big stack and shove one through each letter box) basically keeps the Royal Mail afloat :(
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Yeah, I don't mind quite so much when it's a regular postal worker because I do hope to keep them afloat. Plus, posties are often less forceful with their letterbox drops. This UN-postie a few moments before I wrote this thread threw a HUGE stack of junk so violently through my letterbox that I jumped and squeaked a little. :eek: Bastid!
 
Here you can get a sticker for your mailbox if you don't want any unaddressed advertising. They can't put that stuff in your mailbox if you have the sticker.
 
The un-posties struggle where I live: they can't get through the front door and most of us in the block won't let them in so they just have to shove the junk under the front door where it gets trampled on by peoples wet feet before the weekly cleaning people remove it :D
 
anjinha said:
Here you can get a sticker for your mailbox if you don't want any unaddressed advertising. They can't put that stuff in your mailbox if you have the sticker.
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That's cool. People often put "no junk mail" on their letterboxes (I did) but it is mostly ignored.

*rage* :D

robbieduncan said:
The un-posties struggle where I live: they can't get through the front door and most of us in the block won't let them in so they just have to shove the junk under the front door where it gets trampled on by peoples wet feet before the weekly cleaning people remove it :D
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Well pretty soon I may be moving a place where this is a thing of the past because it's a secured entry with individual locked mailboxes in the lobby, but that's another topic for another time/thread. :)
 
iBlue said:
Well pretty soon I may be moving a place where this is a thing of the past because it's a secured entry with individual locked mailboxes in the lobby, but that's another topic for another time/thread. :)
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Yep. Just one more (minor) point in favour of moving :)
 
anjinha said:
Here you can get a sticker for your mailbox if you don't want any unaddressed advertising. They can't put that stuff in your mailbox if you have the sticker.
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Yea it's the same in France and Switzerland. The French government actually supports the 'pas de pub' stickers as part of their waste-reduction environmental effort, they say that the average person can wind up with 15kg of unsolicited/junk mail per year. :eek:
 
**** that, I want to enact the death penalty for Chinese food delivery people. How many ****ing menus do you need to leave at my front door?
 
OutThere said:
Yea it's the same in France and Switzerland. The French government actually supports the 'pas de pub' stickers as part of their waste-reduction environmental effort, they say that the average person can wind up with 15kg of unsolicited/junk mail per year. :eek:
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For me the most annoying thing wasn't even the advertising itself (since I have the sticker :p) but because our mailboxes are inside the guys that brought that stuff would ring every bell from the first few floors (including mine) so they could come inside the building to get to the mailboxes. But now we have this basket outside for them to drop all their junk mail. :D
 
rdowns said:
**** that, I want to enact the death penalty for Chinese food delivery people. How many ****ing menus do you need to leave at my front door?
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I'd be ok if they left me one ... I can't seem to find a delivery service outside the douche that stands in the parking lot, calls me and makes me walk down to get my food. ****tard.

I wish they would not give me junk. Most of the time all I get in the box is junk.
 
rdowns said:
**** that, I want to enact the death penalty for Chinese food delivery people. How many ****ing menus do you need to leave at my front door?
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Oh man those guys suck. I lived in college owned off campus house last year that was amazing but the front door wasn't flush with the sill, so those guys would come fire handfuls of menus under the door, where they'd sit on the entryway tiles waiting to be slipped on.

anjinha said:
For me the most annoying thing wasn't even the advertising itself (since I have the sticker :p) but because our mailboxes are inside the guys that brought that stuff would ring every bell from the first few floors so they could come inside to get to the mailboxes. But now we have this basket outside for them to drop all their junk mail. :D
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That's incredibly annoying and aggressive just to deliver junk! :eek: your new system sounds much better
 
People in the U.S. can cut down on the junk mail by signing up for the Opt Out Prescreen program. It is run through the major credit reporting agencies, and will stop a lot of the pre-screened credit card and insurance offers. I signed up for it a few years ago, and it helped out quite a bit. It won't stop all of it, but it helps.

Check it out here.
 
steve2112 said:
People in the U.S. can cut down on the junk mail by signing up for the Opt Out Prescreen program. It is run through the major credit reporting agencies, and will stop a lot of the pre-screened credit card and insurance offers. I signed up for it a few years ago, and it helped out quite a bit. It won't stop all of it, but it helps.

Check it out here.
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Sorry, but that site wanted me to input my SS# on a non-secure page.

Not gonna happen.
 
anjinha said:
Here you can get a sticker for your mailbox if you don't want any unaddressed advertising. They can't put that stuff in your mailbox if you have the sticker.
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Here in the US, it's against the law to place unaddressed crap in the mailbox.

The USPS Domestic Mail Manual states that “no part of a mail receptacle may be used to deliver any matter not bearing postage, including items of matter placed upon, supported by, attached to, hung from, or inserted into a mail receptacle.”
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I report the bastards who stick crap into my mailbox that ain't mail. So Mr. Chinese Takeout Menu man, you're in for a world of trouble if you stick that crap in my mailbox.:mad: They've been taping menus, business cards and other crap to my front gate. I rip them in half, and if I happen to go pass the place of business, I tape the ripped pieces to their front door.
 
Save up any of the pre-paid envelopes in the junk mail, and then put all the other junk mail IN it and post it back.


Mousse said:
Here in the US, it's against the law to place unaddressed crap in the mailbox.
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Really? REALLY? I get a whole bunch of it every couple of days.
 
My credit card company (Citi) keeps sending me balance transfer checks to "help consolidate my high-interest credit cards." I swear I get them once a week.

I don't have any high-interest credit cards. I don't have a balance on any of my credit cards. All I have is an unacceptably large stack of checks from Citi that need to be shredded.

So yes, this thread is appropriately timed for me as well. :D
 
There are many examples out there but this just came onto my TV so I thought I'd post it. I think this is a really great ad

IKEA - Happy Inside (awwwwwww :eek: :))

Cadbury's and Guinness have had some brilliant ads:

Guinness - Horses
Guinness - Hands

(too lazy to get the Cadbury's ads but they're on youtube. The Spots vs Stripes, the Airport Toys one with Queen's Don't Me Now playing, and the Gorilla drummer are all pretty cute)
 
iBlue said:
I refuse to even give them acknowledgement by mentioning their name but a perfect example is a certain car buying ad that runs in the UK. It is nothing more than a purposeful annoyance to sink their HORRIBLE repetitive jingle into your head. I'm sure some of you know just what I'm referring to.
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Thanks a lot, that's now in my head!

The advertising war going on between the various price comparison sites is also driving me mad!

I always liked the Boddingtons advert - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2V8VNQczRY
 
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