US thing I’m guessing? Here in Sweden, we don’t get much spam mail in the first place but you simply put a “no ads” sign on your mailbox and then only get the stuff you need. The 8 years I’ve lived in my current apartment I’ve gotten like 3 things that weren’t bills and stuff I need.
In the US, conservative lawmakers have been waging a quiet war against our postal system for a while now.
Highlights: They forced it to be self-sustaining (cut federal funding), then when that didn’t kill it they forced it to, in a very short time frame, pre-fund retirement benefits ahead of time for all current and former employees.
The postal system is more or less dependent on the funds it gets from spam mailers.
Edit: To clarify, I’m not insinuating that the bulk/majority of its income is from junk mail, I’m just stating that its not nothing, so they don’t really have an incentive to kill that source if revenue.
I recently got denied for a public housing program in the US.
I did not find out about this until I was at the local public assistance office for another reason, where I just randomly happened to be told that I was denied by the person who was apparently my case manager.
She said she mailed it a few days ago and was surprised I didn’t get it.
2 weeks later and the actual denial letter never arrived.
…
Keep in mind, almost all government assistance programs in most of the US will correspond by you via mail only. If they email or phone call you, well you still need to show up in person or mail them for most important applications.
And… if they mail you something, they’ll often give you maybe 10 days (not business days, even though everything they do takes business days) to respond and have your response be received by, or they’ll permanently bar you from whatever you are applying for and file it as ‘refused to provide documentation.’
So if your shit gets lost in the mail, fuck you, nobody cares!
…
I have said this in various places on lemmy at other times and people seem to think I am joking, but I am not: If anyone from a functioning country wants to do a sham marriage for tax benefits and I can immigrate there, please let me know. Living off of disability payments alone fucking sucks here.
In the US you just shoot the people that try to put ads in your mailbox. Not a lawyer tho so idk. shrug
LPT: probably shouldn’t do this
LPT: If you aren’t caught it isn’t a crime
Thanks for the warning, i almost shot the mailman.
How does this nonsense comment even have upvotes?
Jokes are funny
Yeah idk man, my brain just produces things and sometimes they just happen to turn into typed text.
USPS says you can write “Refused” on your mail to refuse it. I’ve heard that can possibly stop them from sending you more.
If you wanted to actually opt-out from the largest mail advertising organization’s lists though, you have to pay them. Good 'ol capitalism.
A tip if you’re in the USA, look at the top right of envelope. If it says “presorted standard” it’s garbage.
@The_Picard_Maneuver Here in the UK, sure we get Spam mail but there’s red labels and stuff for really important mail from the government and things and most of the time it’s just telling you to pay for a TV licence that you wouldn’t use as you don’t pay for live TV and just watch YouTube.
If there was a way to highlight official government mail, spam mailers would use it to fool people into thinking it’s something important. I get tons of spam that looks like something official.
Sounds like it would be really easy to put those people in jail for federal offense, yeah? Also if we can print unique, hard-to-duplicate cash, we could do the same for envelope accents, right?
As someone who rents so much of my mail is from past residents which I have told them do not live here, or local ads (literally several magazines per month) which I can’t opt out of cause it’s EDDM, that I straight up just stopped collecting it. Any small packages that would have gone in the box go on top of the cluster and any letters I received are stuffed into the box and I pick them out if I happen to notice I’m missing something.
Anyone that really needs my attention would call me or email me shrug
When I was renting I had a stamp “Return to sender. Addressee not known at this address”
I do similar. Cross the name out with a Sharpie and write “MOVED”.
After owning the place for two years now I just throw it out.
Just so you know, throwing mail away that isn’t yours is a federal crime.
I was taught as a child to open plain envelopes first. Checks, credit cards, and other important stuff are put in boring envelopes.
I worked for a CC company and when we mailed checks to customers we told them “This check will come in a plain white envelope.” And the amount of people who thank me for letting them know because they might have thrown it away.
Who the hell just throws mail away without knowing what it is first? And if it’s not clear from the outside, then without opening it first?
I wish they would get rid of all mail except for person to person written letter, checks made out to me, and packages I’ve ordered. Everything else is garbage.
You’d be killing the USPS. They survive because of that garbage.
Well, that might be how it’s currently primarily funded, but that doesn’t mean that that’s the way it has to be funded.
Just finished my jury duty and it was a wild ride
Other jurors shocked me with how antaganostic they were to the plaintiff for asking for compensation and punishment for a nursing home’s negligence. We ended up awarding money for clear negligence- specifically for injuries (physical and financial) and pain, but it was a struggle to find agreement from them for clear facts that neither side disputed (and verbally acknowledged this nondispute). When it came time to answer if the doctor was negligent in not consulting a wound physician, they didnt agree because the nursing home policy said “do it if wound doesnt improve in 2-4 weeks”. Wound got worse over the 5-6 weeks they waited and by the time they did, she was so bad from not participating in therapy (due to being laid on the wound constantly and the ensuing pain) that she had had to be put on hospice and died from a lack of dialysis.
Because they didnt find the violation of her rights (violations were agreed to) to be reckless or willful (such as by understaffing or poor care), we could not award additional damages to punish the nursing home
I take solace in the fact that it gave the family closure for a 6 year lawsuit
That second part is surprising to me. “Facility policy” and/or signed paperwork don’t allow a provider to be negligent to someone under their care.
Hell, it wouldn’t even protect individual nurses’ licenses. Any licensed individual who provides care is responsible for following the law, even if “policy” contradicts it.
Thats what I was trying to argue but the other jurors were more concerned with not having to come back on Monday and a “that’s what it says” with no critical thinking. Esp when the plaintiff expert witnesses (an excellent nurse who has a practice investigating nursing homes for compliance with the federal regulations and an excellent doctor who worked for CMS writing the very regulations) outlined what care the law requires
I don’t know anything about this stuff, but if there’s bad judgement because people didn’t want to have to come back, then something is seriously rotten about the system and it doesn’t work. What the hell.
