Somebody's using their head!

[Ed_L]

When you get ads in your phone or utility bill,
include them with the payment. Let them throw it away.

When you get those pre approved letters in the mail
for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and junk like that,
most of them come with postage paid return envelopes, right?

Well, why not get rid of some of your other junk
mail and put it in these cool little envelopes!



Send an ad for your local dry cleaner to American
Express. Or a pizza coupon to Citibank.



What is really fun is to send those holiday card samples to these

junkmail purveyors. Wish them happy holidays!


If you didn't get anything else that day, then just
send them their application back!

If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your
name isn't on anything you send them.

You can send it back empty if you want to just to
keep them guessing!

Eventually, the banks and credit card companies will
begin getting all their junk back in the mail.

Let's let them know what it's like to get junk mail,
and best of all THEY'RE paying for it! Twice!

Let's help keep our postal service busy since they say e-mail is cutting
into their business, and that's why they need to increase postage again!

[Hankster65]

Love those ideas, Ed!

Now if there was just something I could do to curtail the flood of spam e-mails I get, I'd be a happy camper. I've set every kind of trap and filter I can come up with and the flood continues. May have to change my e-mail address eventually.

[Ed_L]

I thought that was pretty cool when I saw it, and thought it might be worth posting. Whoever thought of that idea deserves a *bunch* of attaboys. I told my wife a couple of weeks ago that we should take our mail box down, and put a garbage can there instead! Re: junk e-mail, that's a rough one too! I don't post on newsgroups where my e-mail address shows (at least *rarely* do I post). It seems to have done some good as I hardly ever get the junk any more.

Ed

[DJ Dubovsky]

It's a novel idea Ed and one to consider for sure. One of my pet peeves is those credit card offers or credit card checks for balance transfers whether you want them or not. And it's not something you can just toss out with out taking the time to destroy them first.

As for e-mail spam, it's those porn ones I hate. I think they are coming because we accidently landed on one of those sites. And if you try to take yourself off their lists by clicking the url at the bottom, you get an undeliverable notice from your mail server. That's so aggrevating.
DJ

[CJ Swartz]

Ed, those are wonderfully sneaky ideas that might really work to reduce junk mail - thank you for posting them. I'm passing them on to friends immediately, and plan to try one or more as I get new junk mail. Can't do it tonight -- I already tore mine up in shreds (I'm with you, DJ -- hate those unsolicited checks that you have to destroy so no one else will use them).

As for spam, I use a yahoo address as well as my "real" one, and both Yahoo and my ISP have reasonably good filters that make it easy to delete all the junk. This time of year has brought me added junk offering "Great Deals" and "Big Savings" etc.

DJ, I'm pretty sure that those porn emails come whether you've accidentally visited a site or not - because I get them also (without any XXX site visits - thanks to the help of my IE settings). They are the worst, because even though I can delete them without reading the message, their titles are raunchy enough to do damage.

[thomasgeorge]

Dj, Sounds like you might have some "spy ware" planted in your computer. There is a neat little program called "Ad Aware" which is free and can be downloaded from ZDnet download site which will get rid of any spy ware you might have lurking about. I had a problem with the same garbage when I mis-spelled Astronomy (too many "s's") and ended up at a site Not dedicated to celestial wonders.. That program found some spy ware programs and removed them and the garbage went away. Worth a try anyway. Good luck, Tom

[Jill]

Great idea to get rid of yucky spam. Hope you don't mind me butting in, but I just downloaded the ad aware program from zdnet and found 31 files of spy ware.....erggghhhhh no wonder I was getting so much "yuck" in my inbox. Thank you soooo much for that question and answer. I always learn something great from this group.

[DJ Dubovsky]

Thanks Tom, I will definately check that out right away.
DJ

[chris h]

I concur with Toms ad aware recommendation. Pre paid envelopes that come with junk mail over here don't have a weight limit. So I occasionally mail a shoe box full of gravel/rock back to them(their envelope glued to lid) which the Royal Mail then bills them. Might work in the US.