28 November 2008

Is this a record?

| seekay
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We got home tonight to our place in the inner-south and found 24 – count ’em – 24 separate items of junk mail* in our letterbox. Is this some sort of record?

In one way it’s tempting to contact the advertisers to let them know that the scumbags they have delivering their junk are ripping them off, but as it’s their crap that’s clogging our letterbox they can suffer.

*I include the City News in this category. I think that’s fair.

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p1 said :

I love reading the catalogues for places like ubercheap auto, who sell lots of cool toys I’ll never buy, but like to look at in wish-books. It is really disappointing when you get a nice pile of junk mail and it is all made up of mattress and fishing adverts.

Too true, the harvey norman and dick smith catalogues great reading material of all the things i’d like but can’t afford at this time. Christmas time bulk catalogue deliveries are the best!

If you don’t want the catalogues, put a damn no junk mail sign up and quit ya damn whinging.

jakez said :

Whether your piece of advertising material is included with other pieces of material or not is part of the pricing structure.

Agreed.

Back when I worked for Salmat (before some of you were born!), we had two different types of requests from advertisers. 1. Do not deliver with/fold with any other advertiser’s material, and 2. Go nuts.

So if you received 24 separate pieces of advertising pamphlets from category 2, and you could physically fold them together and deliver them as such, there was nothing stopping a deliverer doing so. The only drawback being that you could only actually carry so many multi-folded pamphlets at the one time.

Whoever it was who mentioned deliverers as ‘scumbags’ can GAGF. Some of the people who were working for us were in circs (not circuses) similar to those of the modern day ‘Big Issue’ sellers, and they would jump at any work we could throw their way. They were out getting scads of exercise and earning an honest quid. The balance were school kids, Uni students who didn’t want to wait tables, retired people propping up their pensions — all walks (no pun intended) of life.

Whether your piece of advertising material is included with other pieces of material or not is part of the pricing structure.

Felix the Cat9:19 pm 28 Nov 08

I like junk mail too, but only the quality stuff like store catalogues. I rarely get a store catalogue these days, mainly only Dominos menus/vouchers, Asian restaurant menus and curiously, real estate property management offers. I get The Chronicle delivered but not City News.

i was under the impression that ‘no junk mail’ has no legal standing – only something of the order of ‘no unsolicited mail’ can legally deter the deluge…

Tee hee Thumper! – “The Great Junk Mail Stuffing of 1887. . . .”

Shades of “twas the night b4 Xmas . . .” ?

Canberra’s printing industry is doing it very hard thanx to the public service cutbacks – public servants stop doing stuff so they can keep paying themselves. I’ve taken the ‘no junk mail’ sign off my letterbox, because those pamphlets are keeping printers in work!

You do know, however, that there’s pizza coupons on those domino’s menus.

Yeah, but it’s for Dominos pizzas.

Deadmandrinking5:59 pm 28 Nov 08

tylersmayhem said :

I save junk mail and use it to stuff those pre-paid return postage envelopes I keep getting with other junk mail.

So it’s not just me! Nice work Poptop, and I agree that it’s karmic rebalancing! I’ve recently changed address, so luckily I’m starting fresh with no reply paid crap…yet. As soon as I do, those bastards will be getting a collection of Domino’s and Fortune Cookie menus.

You do know, however, that there’s pizza coupons on those domino’s menus.

tylersmayhem3:59 pm 28 Nov 08

I save junk mail and use it to stuff those pre-paid return postage envelopes I keep getting with other junk mail.

So it’s not just me! Nice work Poptop, and I agree that it’s karmic rebalancing! I’ve recently changed address, so luckily I’m starting fresh with no reply paid crap…yet. As soon as I do, those bastards will be getting a collection of Domino’s and Fortune Cookie menus.

I have a ‘no junk mail, but please deliver The Chronicle’ sticker that I got from The Canberra Times. Seems to work wonders.

It isn’t my original idea. I would give kudos if I could remember where I got it from.

I save junk mail and use it to stuff those pre-paid return postage envelopes I keep getting with other junk mail.

It is my personal version of karmic rebalancing.

Electoral material isn’t officially junk mail, apparantly.

Deadmandrinking2:39 pm 28 Nov 08

blingblingbears said :

well I have a ‘no junk mail’ sticker on my letterbox and we still keep getting junk mail

That’s when you ring and complain.

tylersmayhem2:16 pm 28 Nov 08

But then i suppose you wouldn’t have any thing to whine about if you did that.

Oh good grief Blueberry!

well I have a ‘no junk mail’ sticker on my letterbox and we still keep getting junk mail

I’m happy to say our No Junk Mail sign seems to do the trick – except prior to the election…but that one’s been done to death! 🙂

blingblingbears1:16 pm 28 Nov 08

well I have a ‘no junk mail’ sticker on my letterbox and we still keep getting junk mail… only from the usual suspects such as a particular pizza store…

its very annoying – cant you letterbox droppers read!! NO JUNK MAIL!!!

(I do like getting some store catalog junkmail, especially around xmas so I can ‘windowshop’ from home however the hubby does not and out letterbox always got overstuffed, hence the sticker… I just read them at my mum’s house instead!)

Deadmandrinking12:44 pm 28 Nov 08

Agree with Blueberry. The ‘scumbags’ who deliver them are usually either joggers or teens who are being introduced to the workplace world where if you do hard work, you get paid f-k all, but if you get yourself into some slack-off office, you get paid heaps more.

You can’t honestly tell me that having a ‘no junk mail’ sign has never crossed your mind.

I don’t understand? Why would you need to contact them? They know that they are delivering junk mail to heaps of houses and that it is likely that a lot of those households won’t read them?

If you don’t want junk mail just put up a ‘No Junk Mail’ sign….. its… not… that … hard.

But then i suppose you wouldn’t have any thing to whine about if you did that.

I find junk mail can come in quite handy for taking your mind off the job at hand when you’re trying to squeaze out one of those oversized steamers that just won’t drop.

What do the retailers think of having their catalogues delivered alongside their rivals? e.g. a Harvey Norman catalogue wrapped inside a Good Guys and Dick Smith catalogue?

I can understand why they do it though, letterbox delivering is a hard job.

There are indeed delivery cartels. The top dog is Salmat – he’s at the top of the pyramid. Then you might have seen those blokes on ex postie bikes with plastic boxes on the back. They are the runners (or distributors) who filter the information out amongst us…..They are a bit more co-ordinated than in my day and use more efficient delivery methods (pushie vs postie bike). Me and my brother were our own little network – and for the right price we even delivered a dog turd to a specified letterbox!

Normally the “individual delivery” requirement carries a hefty price penalty. Most large chains understand that it is better to get their brochures out there than to demand individual delivery.

And as someone that has commissioned this type of marketing I can assure you that junk mail works.

tylersmayhem9:58 am 28 Nov 08

@AG Canberra: very good point. Sounds like some decent cash to be made while exercising. I don’t see it as a “rip off” if a dude chooses to deliver 24 different pieces of crap and multiply his earnings by 24. Somehow I don’t think this would be the case. I imagine one outlet would want them to deliver 6 or 8 publications at a time, and be paid per “delivery”.

As long as they don’t dump crap in my mailbox I have no problem with the concept. I wonder if there are “Delivery Cartels”. I can imagine if you undercut other delivery dudes to get the job, it could cause much angst. Maybe it could account for many of Canberra’s unsolved crimes. That dude found dead near the primary school…the Charnwood stabbing?!

I love reading the catalogues for places like ubercheap auto, who sell lots of cool toys I’ll never buy, but like to look at in wish-books. It is really disappointing when you get a nice pile of junk mail and it is all made up of mattress and fishing adverts.

Silver bells, silver bells
It’s Christmas time in the city
Ring-a-ling, hear them sing
Soon it will be Christmas day

About 25 years ago I used to get paid $17.50 per thousand. If the same bloke delivered all 24 items at that price then that is not bad work for a couple of afternoons out in the fresh air plus a bit of collating time.

The bloke that delivers ours has lost some serious weight in the past few months. So in effect these guys pay you to keep fit!

I took the no junk mail sticker off the letter box nearly 2 weeks ago to keep up to date with the Christmas sales. I have so far received nothing! Maybe they are just used to skipping me? Maybe I need a big ‘Junk Mail Here Please’ sticker?

Xmas mailbox stuffing? They’ve hardly started yet . . .

“That is so interesting!” as I pick my nose and look at the snot on my finger.

tylersmayhem8:51 am 28 Nov 08

it’s tempting to contact the advertisers to let them know that the scumbags they have delivering their junk are ripping them off,

I fully would try and contact them. But as for the “ripping off” I’m not sure how so after you’ve mentioned “24 separate items of junk mail”. If they are “separate” then I understand that as 24 different pieces of junk, rather than 24 copies of the same crap.

Do you have a No Junk Mail sticker on your lettucebox BTW?

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