Occupy Sense
Good blog item by Ben Popken at Consumerist about a YouTube video that's gone viral promoting the notion that you can really mess with banks by sending back angry messages in those prepaid envelopes that come with credit card offers...that this will cause the banks to revolutionize the way they operate. Silly! Naive!
Popken blogs, "This is a terrible idea and a waste of time":
As much as I may appreciate the video's sentiment, the mail gets processed by outside contractors , it doesn't go into the bank mailroom. There's not going to be a meeting. Anything that doesn't fit the marketing response lead generation criterion is going to get thrown in the trash. They're a direct marketing facility, they don't care about dialogue.Making it heavier won't raise mail costs for bank as they pay flat bulk rates. However, putting weird heavy and crumbly crap in letters may mess up the mail sorting machines at the post office, which is why most postmasters try to intercept that stuff. If a prepaid postage envelope is used for other than its intended purpose - the classic example popularized in Abbie Hoffman's "Steal This Book" is taping it to a brick - the post office can treat it as "waste" and toss it. They're highly motivated to keep items like this out of the mail.
Finally, the notion that if enough of these envelopes come in the bank will have to meet about it, "and an hour spent making them react to us is an hour less they spend foreclosing and lobbying," ...is just plain wrong. Even if this meeting did happen, it won't draw any resources away from the parts of the bank handling the foreclosure and lobbying efforts.
Here's the video:
PS Yes, nimrod, the bank pays less for mail -- as does anyone who gets a bulk rate stamp...which even I used to have. It's about volume, not discrimination.
What Amy said! And dude, get a new tie.
Pricklypear at November 2, 2011 7:40 AM
Considering that one of the sorting post offices for the Pentagon is in the office park I work at. I have vivid memories of the whole sending anthrax through the mail scare.
Send suspicious things through the mail, and homeland security gets called. They don't joke around and they continuously ignore civil rights. Try this and you might find yourself in Gitmo, even with the President supporting your movement.
Joe J at November 2, 2011 8:07 AM
This is the new plan? Who are the 12 year olds coming up with these things? "I'm gonna camp out in front of buildings and essentially live in filth. I'm gonna mail mean notes and yucky stuff to someone I'm mad at. All of this will mildly annoy them, right?"
Wrong. It's a strain on the citizens that you claim to be defending. My tax dollars help subsudize that post office. My tax dollars help pay for the upkeep of that park that you all have turned into a campground. Can I come stay in your backyard and pee wherever I want? How about when you want to spend time there with your family? How about then?
Renee at November 2, 2011 8:45 AM
I thought of something else!! How about we make voodoo dolls and stick pins in them while saying really mean things!! That'll show em!
Renee at November 2, 2011 8:58 AM
"...sending back angry messages in those prepaid envelopes that come with credit card offers..."
Really? Is somebody touting this as a good idea? Talk about not getting your money's worth for a college education!
Old RPM Daddy at November 2, 2011 10:19 AM
Bulk rate pricing is one of the reasons the post office is running out of money. There would be a lot less junk mail if banks and catalog companies had to pay the full rate, or send their unsolicited crap through Fed x or UPS.
As a courtesy, the post office should provide a shredder next to our centralized mail box.
The good news is, this time of year, I have plenty of stuff to stick under the logs when we light a fire.
Isabel1130 at November 2, 2011 11:07 AM
I like Renee's idea about the voodoo dolls. Good idea for a video. Idiots would do it in their basements and we wouldn't have them messing up parks.
Dave B at November 2, 2011 11:28 AM
Yes, these are the very peeps who will surely lead us out of the economic and social wilderness.
And we can trust their judgment about whom to vote for.
Harry Bergeron at November 2, 2011 12:22 PM
This guy actually thinks he's going to make a difference with these obnoxious envelope. Whatever happened to sending actual bank personnel bales well-written letters of protest? That might actually cause something to happen.
mpetrie98 at November 2, 2011 12:41 PM
Suggestion to the OWS lot: just put some white flour in the envelope and then send it back.
Don't mind the men in black knocking at your door, tho. They're just there to take your medicinial mary jane...
I R A Darth Aggie at November 2, 2011 12:47 PM
Bulk rate pricing is one of the reasons the post office is running out of money.
You know where the USPS makes money? spaming your mailbox with that bulk rate stuff. All those spiffy automated sorting machines? tuned specifically to handle bulk. And the bulk rate stuff subsidizes your first class letters and cards to family and friends.
I R A Darth Aggie at November 2, 2011 12:51 PM
Offtopic for Iphones
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at November 2, 2011 1:01 PM
From a government study of the post office:
"The Postal Service insists that first-class users are not being overcharged to subsidize Frederick's of Hollywood and other advertisers. But according to one U.S.P.S. study, first-class mail provides 68 percent more revenue than its attributable cost, while second-class mail provides 2 percent less than its cost.[55] In the early 1970s, six internal Postal Service audits concluded that first-class users were being over-charged to subsidize other classes.[56] The chief administrative judge of the Postal Rate Commission concluded, "The Postal Service has become a tax-collecting agency collecting money from first-class mailers to distribute to other favored classes."[57]"
Isabel1130 at November 2, 2011 2:58 PM
"... opponents of the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States, including Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, have been using this quote, from a 38-year-old protester named Jeremy puzzled by the habits of bankers on Bay Street, in Toronto's financial district, as evidence that that the protesters are lazy:
"It's weird protesting on Bay Street. You get there at 9 a.m. and the rich bankers who you want to hurl insults at and change their worldview have been at work for two hours already. And then when it's time to go, they're still there. I guess that's why they call them the one per cent. I mean, who wants to work those kinds of hours? That's the power of greed." - Jeremy, 38
... Jeremy is a fictional character he invented recently for his weekly humor column published in Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper. "
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/latest-updates-on-occupy-oakland-protest/?ref=us
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at November 2, 2011 3:08 PM
Redditpic
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at November 2, 2011 3:37 PM
So if you are able to encourage people to do shit that costs banks money, will the banks:
A) deduct the costs from executives' paychecks...
or
B) figure a way to increase fees for customers?
I vote "B".
Not Sure at November 2, 2011 3:38 PM
Check this out about the Occupy people in New York. I especially love the part where the head of "security" in their camp talks about the homeless that are living among them. He mentions how he knows that the movement is subsidizing some people, and its a "weak point" in the movement. HA! So you don't like to subsidize other's and the way they live? But you want the big bad business men and government to subsidize your decision to go to some high dollar school and study American Folk Dancing or some crap?
The irony was too funny not to share!!
http://fieldnotes.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/02/8603904-sex-assault-arrest-highlights-security-concerns-at-occupy-protests
Renee at November 3, 2011 8:43 AM
The smug is strong with this one.
Do these cretins really think they're accomplishing anything - aside from raping some chicks and damaging the economy, I mean?
JDThompson at November 3, 2011 8:59 AM
Now I didn't follow the tea party thing to closely, still don't...but do these things happen there too?
Robert at November 3, 2011 9:20 AM
> The smug is strong with this one.
Dooooood!
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at November 3, 2011 6:20 PM
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