Junk Mail

Chriswil

Please tell me how I can post a breeze block. I assume that if you take it to a post office you will have to pay the postage...

Can you just say that it is freepost?

I have a pile of blocks in the back garden - much cheaper than hiring a skip!!!!!

Chris ;D

Savvy_Sue

I have a friend who encloses a letter thanking the company for their interest in his business along with an administration bill for his reply for anything from £5 to £25. Apparantly 8 out of 10 companies pay up...........and never send anything again ;D

Oh what a superb idea! Now, we get an awful lot of wrongly addressed post as our house has a similar name to a very large government building the other side of the city. Bad enough when the envelope has OUR postcode on but today there were two letters with the WRONG postcode on. So as well as re-directing them I shall in future send a bill to the people who can't be bothered to get their mailing lists right! And if the Royal Mail can't deliver stuff properly I shall bill them too and not be fobbed off with a book of stamps (which last time I complained they didn't even send me when they said they would!)

Rant over: people to invoice ...

Some hours later ...

It's taken me about 6 times longer to send out the invoices than it did to scribble the right address on the envelopes, but I have a great feeling of satisfaction, moral superiority and a faint hope of receiving some cheques ... and since I sent all the invoices by email it hasn't cost me any postage. Hopefully somebody will take note and start using the right postcode!!!

Trix

If anyone gets a result from the invoice method - please post it ;D

Although my friend does this regularly and DOES get SOME people to pay up - I've never gotten around to doing it myself :-[.

May get a better response if you 'fake' a company name and letter head. Remember to use THEIR freepost envelopes if you're replying to junk mail

webmasterpolo

The freepost breeze block sounds great!  ;D  ;D  ;D  ;D  ;D

But no one has answered the question already raised - if l took a breeze block into a post office with a freepost envelope stuck to it, would they charge me?

I'm totally serious here.

Has anyone tried this?

Marcus - how does your friend do it??

Savvy_Sue

If anyone gets a result from the invoice method - please post it ;D

May get a better response if you 'fake' a company name and letter head. Remember to use THEIR freepost envelopes if you're replying to junk mail  ;)

One almost result! The Water Board kept sending the bill for a charity to us: they are based on large business park / office area which has same name as our house in their address but completely different postcode. As well as forwarding it to the charity with a note asking them to get the address amended, I also 'mocked up' an invoice and sent it to Water Board by email. They are going to take £10 off our next bill!

I haven't heard anything at all from any of my other email invoices.

Note this isn't strictly junk mail, it isn't ours at all. We get heaps of mail using our postcode because of the confusion between our house name and this other place. That's bad enough but lately we have had several letters with ENTIRELY THE WRONG POSTCODE through our door - I thought they sorted it by machine so can't see what the excuse it, it should be going to an entirely different delivery office! Funnily enough, no response to my complaint from Royal Mail beyond the standard acknowledgement.

Trix

Savvy_Sue - Yay, a problem sorted and a free £10  ;D

webmasterpolo - I'm guessing that as most (all?) freepost envelopes have a 2 or 1 where the stamp usually goes - that means first or second class postage paid and so you can only post something that weighs the amount that is eligible for these postage amounts. If you stick something heavier into the post-box the receiver would have to pay the extra postage costs but I can't imagine counter staff accepting things that are heavier than the postage paid - you could volunteer to be the one to test the theory for the rest of us though

System

Stick the prepaid envelope on something heavy but small enough to fit in a letterbox.

PaleScene

I volunteer at a local not-for-profit organisation for sustainable living, and we have a policy of posting our publications and other post in envelopes in reconditioned envelopes.

These days I open all my mail carefully, put the chronically branded ones into the recycling box with all non-shredded and shredded contents and keep the serviceable and additional free envelopes in a bag to take into work periodically.

I also keep take any free envelopes sent by anyone I actually use, as I use internet, then phone, for most admin.

Works great as a system, makes me feel good about recycling, cuts down on reconditioning effort as I'm a careful opener and makes it unlikely work will ever be troubled by a cost for envelopes.

nb - we do put stamps on all the envelopes when reused at work, as someone said earlier, freepost and pseudo-frank-marks don't count unless it's going to the printed recipient. (And obviously our intent is not to make any of our subscribers pay an excess post charge!)

PaleScene

lost the sense of the first sentence on previous post!

we don't double up on envelopes, we just use reconditioned ones...

System

I once read in the paper that someone sent a pallet of bricks with a freepost envelope. I wondered at the time how you would get the royal mail to take this!