Hacker News Reader

Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

DirecTV and credit card companies do this to me all the time. I'll receive a letter that looks like some kind of greeting card or invite with no identifier but an address. The font used on the outside mimicks human handwriting, so it looks authentic if you're not really paying attention.

I kinda get excited I'm getting invited to something, I open it up, and its a fucking ad.

I don't understand how people do business with businesses that mislead you like this. I mean, if they think of you so little before you're a customer, imagine how badly they will treat you when you are one.

View on HN

I've noticed the dead give away for those is that they come with a "Pre-sorted Standard" stamp instead of the first class postage that most personal mail uses.

I keep getting the same one from a certain car dealership every few months. Apparently handwritten address on envelope, real ordinary first-class postage stamp (even placed at a slight angle, so it doesn't look like a machine did it). Postmarked from a different state than the dealership is in. No return address.

Open it up though, and the deception ends immediately. Just your usual tacky, glossy printed brochure.

You should make Rick Astley postcards, and send them back to them the same way.

I recently moved in a new neighborhood and I think it was Direct TV that sent me one addressed to "Our New Neighbor." At first I was like, well this is awesome, I must have at least one nice neighbor. Opening it was followed by a "dirty fuckers" sighed under my breath.

They have since did it a second time, but I will not be fooled again.

You can always tell by comparing two of the same letters.

For example, if two lowercase 'e's are exact clones of each other, you know it's a computer font.

You didn't read the story, did you?

> The best handwriting machines already vary some letters to avoid seeming too repetitive. Check out "offer" in the third line of that letter above: The "f"s are different from each other. The bot has been programmed to pen that letter a few different ways, the better to fool readers.

Even high end handwriting fonts for print has multiple variations of each letter.

One of these "cards" was exactly what put DirecTv on my "don't do business with" list.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com