Thursday, September 20, 2007

More junk mail, please

If you thought you already received a lot of junk mail, it looks like things are about to get even worse.
Canada Post are directing their letter carriers not to divert mail which they know to be incorrectly addressed, something the letter carriers have apparently been doing on a voluntary basis up until now. So, as well as the unaddressed junk mail, which usually gets delivered in spite of the prominent "No Flyers Please" notice on our mailbox, and correctly addressed junk mail (such as the monthly Sears catalogues we have been receiving ever since we were foolish enough to buy something from a Sears wedding list some years ago, and which they say they are not able to stop despite frequent requests), we will also be receiving someone else's junk mail.
And this apparently because Canada Post does not want to imperil their lucrative half-billion dollars of mass mailout contracts.
Letter carriers will not be allowed to divert mail that has the wrong name on it, "even if a customer has on 'many occasions' handed back mail, called a supervisor or made a formal inquiry through the corporation's customer-relationship management process", and even in the case of pornographic advertising.
How dumb is that? Public image shot to pieces in one fell swoop. I can see this issue as having the capacity to generate a groundswell of public opinion and all manner of protests and boycotts.
Maybe it might bring the whole junk mail issue to a head, though, which may be no bad thing.

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