Ask HN: My snail mail has me going postal | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: My snail mail has me going postal

7 pointsfjabre8 comments

I've come to my whit's end when it comes to managing my real life inbox: the mailbox in my driveway.

It's enough to drive a person mad. Not only do I receive tons of worthless crap everyday (those senders should be prosecuted and sent to prison for destroying the environment and wasting everyone's time) - I also get statements from the bank/credit cards that have sensitive information in them.

After moving a couple of times in the past few years I'm sure there have been plenty of opportunities for identity theft of my info. It's probably just pure luck it hasn't happened yet.

My question is this: How the hell do I stop snail mail from coming to my address? There is one solution I know of at http://www.earthclassmail.com/ which might be a little pricey but for the peace of mind it definitely seems worth it.

Anyone else out there had success with this "problem"? Any solutions you know of I could try? I'm thinking of having a giant bonfire in the backyard otherwise..

I have this problem. 99% of my snail mail (by weight) goes straight into the recycling bin. To really make you cry, I live on an outer Hawaii island - so not only the trees died for no reason, but large amounts of fuel was consumed to bring this junk here, just so it can be shipped back as recycling.

I was actually desperate enough to pay a service that promised to stop junk mail. It didn't really work - a lot of my junk mail did not come from sources they knew about, it was too much effort to tell them about all the sources they didn't know about, in some cases the sources actually refused to stop the junk mail without a WRITTEN request and in some cases they refused outright to stop it at all (because I get my snail mail at work, and other people also there happened to get their catalogues).

The only plan that I think would really work is to get a new address (a PO box), tell the USPS to not do any bulk mail forward - and in fact, if your source of real snail mail is actually small enough, tell USPS not to do any forwarding of mail at all - and just tell the few people that really have to send you snail mail your new address.

I don't know what happens to the undelivered bulk mail - I'd like to think the sender eventually gets the idea and stop sending it - but at least it will no longer be your problem.

tell the USPS to not do any bulk mail forward

the USPS will not forward bulk mail, and even magazines will not get forwarded. only mail carrying first class postage will get forwarded.

however, as soon as you submit a change of address, the USPS makes that information public, so many companies subscribe to those lists and will get your new address (like magazine companies). so your best bet is to just not forward any mail and submit the address changes manually to the companies that send you mail.

There's plenty of alternatives to EarthClassMail which are more reasonably priced; check out a list here:

http://unhappyecmcustomer.blogspot.com/2009/09/earth-class-m...

I've been using a newer one, http://virtualpostmail.com , which I've found both cheaper and better for my purposes.

You can also opt out of catalogs pretty effectively with a site like http://catalogchoice.org .

Beyond that, sign up for eBills and the like as much as you can through your bank's online bill pay.

The only thing I really havn't been able to stop are those pesky credit card checks, but I havn't actually tried calling my banks and asking.

I have been using Earth Class Mail for several months and it works fantastically.

You get a real, non-PO-Box address (your user id is in the "apartment number"). Since I've been moving around a lot, including abroad, I use it for my bank accounts, credit cards, everything. Occasionally a company will want proof that it's your address, but once you have mail coming to it, that's easy. For example, changing the mailing address on an existing bank account can be done online, and then you have a bank statement as proof in the future.

Earth Class Mail will scan your mail for you at the touch of a button, so most mail does not need to be forwarded. They scan the outside of all mail, and even run OCR on the return address. If you have them open an envelope and scan the contents, they will scan everything they can, and then put it back in an envelope that they can forward to you if you need the physical contents.

There's really no downside as long as you trust Earth Class Mail and their employees.

(Note: I haven't compared ECM to other alternatives. After reading hannibalhorn's comment below and some of the linked pages, it sounds like people have complaints about ECM's prices, high latency receiving mail to some east-coast addresses, and poor check cashing feature. I have a Seattle ECM address, don't use their check cashing and have not really had any problems. It's a very valuable service to me, and though I don't know if they really need to charge the fees they do, it's not obvious that switching to a competitor trying to undercut them is wise. I will probably give virtualpostmail a look though.)

Get a PO Box.

I RTS (return-to-sender) any mail that I recognise as not from organizations I deal with - like invitations for credit cards, magazines, conferences, etc.

Does this really work? I've Googled around, and it looks like some/most of the junk mail you do this to won't actually make it back to the sender, but will just be disposed of by the post office.

http://www.fortknoxmailbox.com/ -- works great for me (locked mailbox, built like a tank).

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